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A man in Little Rock, AR who was previously convicted of theft after posing as an insurance agent, has landed in hot water with the law again after allegedly passing himself off as a licensed lawyer on multiple occasions.
Malik Akbar’el was convicted in 1995 of theft by deception for selling fake car insurance to a woman, and for issuing bad checks totaling more than $1,400 between 1993 and 1994, according to the Democrat Gazette.
On Monday, a judge told Akbar’el he faces criminal charges if he is caught posing as a lawyer. According to the news organization, the court heard several testimonies of Akbar’el’s supposed deception. One couple said the man had secretly sold off some of their land using the power of attorney he requested them to sign.
Akbar’el also faces a lawsuit from the state Supreme Court Committee on the Unauthorized Practice of Law, after gathering three years’ worth of complaints about his operations, the paper reported.
Akbar’el has denied the accusations and has written to the committee that the power of attorney he obtained from clients allowed him to act on their behalf. “You do not have to be a lawyer to help a person understand their legal rights, you only need to read and point them to the law book,” he wrote, as quoted by the report. “I have never practiced law, I only work from a Power of Attorney which makes me an Attorney in Fact. I only use facts. I don’t have to go to law school to understand law. Attorney in Fact and an Attorney at Law are two different things.”
