Admission to Practice: Present Regulation by Federal Agencies-Page 1, February 1948

8 Admission to Practice: Present Regulation by Federal Agencies by John W. Cragun • of the District of Columbia Bar ■ When the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives began its consideration of H. R. 2657 (by Congressman John W. Gwynne, of Iowa; 80th Congress, 1st Session), supported by our Association in order to standardize the requirements for admission to practice before federal agencies and establishments and place lawyers in a status in no way dependent on administrative discretion or discrimina¬ tion, among the first questions which arose were most naturally those as to the nature, variety, and effects of the present rules, regulations, etc. This at once was revealed as a most intricate structure of requirements, baffling to lawyers except as to particular agencies before which they had qualified. Our Association’s Committee on Administrative Law, through Vice Chairman John W. Cragun of its Committee on the subject, had the answer in the form of a demonstrative chart, to which the explanatory footnotes had to be voluminous. At the request of the Journal, Mr. Cragun has prepared an article to give the back¬ ground for his chart and accompany it in our columns. The article and chart are in themselves a factually cogent argument for the early enactment of the Gwynne bill, but they will also be extremely useful to practicing lawyers for reference and guidance as to what they may meanwhile have to do in order to qualify themselves to appear and represent their clients before a particular federal agency or establishment. ■ The hearings on H.R. 2657, which our Association has endorsed in an effort to overcome the anomalies re¬ specting the legal representation of those having business with the fed¬ eral departments and independent establishments, have directly posed the question as to what requirements are in force in the various agencies at the present time. There was pre¬ pared and introduced before the House Judiciary Committee a table showing in condensed form some of the requirements— or the lack of re¬ quirements— of the various establish¬ ments which are more particularly concerned with regulating the inter¬ ests and affairs of persons coming before them. Since the hearings may be protracted, and since many of our members will have occasion prior to final adoption of the measure to ap¬ pear in a representative capacity be¬ fore the federal agencies, the chart is reproduced at page 113 in this issue, with a view to giving a ready summary of the requirements to be met in each of the principal agencies. If an attorney has not been ad¬ mitted to practice before any of the following agencies before which he wishes to represent a client, it will be necessary that he be so admitted, under the rules now in force. Each maintains a formal roll of prac¬ titioners: Department of the Treasury Department of Justice (as to the Immigration and Naturalization Service only) Post Office Department Department of Commerce (as to Pat¬ ent Office only; and even in the Patent Office, admission is not re¬ quired in order to prosecute trade¬ mark applications) Federal Communications Commission Interstate Commerce Commission Veterans Administration Agencies Having No Rules Respecting Appearances On the other hand, to represent a client, one need not be entered on any formal roll with respect to a number of agencies which have no rules whatever respecting appear¬ ances before them in a representative capacity. Before any of the follow¬ ing, so far as their regulations pro¬ vide, a party might even be repre¬ sented by an illiterate subject of Lilliput who is a minor and a lunatic: Department of War Department of Justice (as to all of its functions except the Immigration and Naturalization Service) Department of Navy Department of Agriculture Department of Commerce (except as to the Civil Aeronautics Authority and the Patent Office) Department of Labor Federal Security Agency (including Employees’ Compensation Commis¬ sion, the Food and Drug Adminis- February, 1948 • Vol. 34 11]