CAYETANO VS MONSOD

ISSUE:Does Atty. Monsod meet the requirement for the practice of law needed for
the position?

The legal provision provides that practice of law means any activity, in or out of
court, which requires the application of law, legal procedure, knowledge, training
and experience. To engage in the practice of law is to perform those acts which are
characteristics of the profession. Generally, to practice law is to give notice or
render any kind of service, which device or service requires the use in any degree of
legal knowledge or skill.

The Supreme Court interpreted in the light of the various definitions of the term
practice of law, particularly the modern concept of law practice, and taking into
consideration the liberal construction intended by the framers of the Constitution,
Atty. Monsods past work experiences as a lawyer-economist, a lawyer-manager, a
lawyer entrepreneur of industry, a lawyer-negotiator of contracts, and a lawyer-
legislator of both the rich and the poorverily more than satisfy the constitutional
requirementthat he has been engaged in the practice of law for at least ten years.

ULEP vs LEGAL CLINIC

ISSUE: Is the operation of Legal Clinic valid?

The law provides that practice of law means any activity, in or out of court, which
requires the application of law, legal procedures, knowledge, training and
experience. To engage in the practice of law is to perform those acts which are
characteristic of the profession. Generally, to practice law is to give advice or render
any kind of service that involves legal knowledge or skill.

Applying this in the case, what is palpably clear is that Legal Clinic corporation gives
out legal information to laymen and lawyers. In providing information, for example,
about foreign laws on marriage, divorce and adoption, it strains the credulity of this
Court that all respondent corporation will simply do is look for the law, furnish a
copy thereof to the client, and stop there as if it were merely a bookstore. With its
attorneys and so called paralegals, it will necessarily have to explain to the client
the intricacies of the law and advise him or her on the proper course of action to be
taken as may be provided-for by said law.

IN RE: ALMACEN

ISSUE: Should Atty. Almacen be disciplined?

The law provides that a lawyer, both as an officer of the court and as a citizen, may
criticize in properly respectful terms and through legitimate channels the act of
courts and judges. But it is the cardinal condition of all such criticism that it shall be
bona fide, and shall not spill over the walls of decency and propriety.
In the case at bar, That the misconduct committed by Atty. Almacen is of
considerable gravity cannot be overemphasized. However, heeding the stern
injunction that disbarment should never be decreed where a lesser sanction would
accomplish the end desired, and believing that it may not perhaps be futile to hope
that in the sober light of some future day, Atty. Almacen will realize that abrasive
language never fails to do disservice to an advocate and that in every effervescence
of candor there is ample room for the added glow of respect, it is our view that
suspension will suffice under the circumstances. His demonstrated persistence in
his misconduct by neither manifesting repentance nor offering apology therefore
leave us no way of determining how long that suspension should last and,
accordingly, we are impelled to decree that the same should be indefinite.