Thurgood Puts the Legal Basis for Non-Attorney Representation on the Public Record

NEW YORK, September 22, 2026 — Thurgood, a non-attorney employee advocacy firm (www.askthurgood.com), has put the legal model for non-attorney practice on the public record. The framework, published in full with citations, answers the three questions lawyers and bar regulators raise about non-attorney representation: what law allows it, whether a non-attorney can be paid for it, and why it is not the unauthorized practice of law.

Employment law's access-to-justice problem is a shortage of representatives. In 2025, 21.2 million U.S. workers were laid off or discharged, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The National Employment Lawyers Association (NELA) has about 4,000 members, one for every 5,300 of those workers. Non-attorney representatives can serve the workers on the far side of that ratio.¹

Legal authority

What law allows it. The Administrative Procedure Act provides that a party "is entitled to appear in person or by or with counsel or other duly qualified representative in an agency proceeding." The framework pairs that statute with the relevant provisions at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Department of Labor.¹

Paid representation

Whether it can be paid. Federal law recognizes paid non-attorney representation in several settings:¹

• the Equal Access to Justice Act allows "reasonable attorney or agent fees"
• the Internal Revenue Code treats fees for authorized non-attorney practitioners as fees for an attorney's services
• the Social Security Act extends its fee procedures to non-attorney representatives

Paid practice is what lets non-attorney representation grow into a profession large enough to reach the workers the employment bar cannot.

Unauthorized practice of law

Why it is not the unauthorized practice of law. Lawyer licensing is a matter of state law, and state law yields where federal law authorizes an appearance. In Sperry v. Florida (1963), Florida enjoined a paid non-attorney from representing clients before the federal Patent Office. The U.S. Supreme Court accepted that his work was the practice of law under Florida law. It vacated the injunction anyway, holding that state licensing rules must yield to federal authorization to appear before a federal agency. The Federal Circuit has applied the same principle to practice before the Merit Systems Protection Board.¹ Thurgood's retainer states that Thurgood is not a law firm and confines each representation to an agency proceeding Thurgood is permitted to appear in. Thurgood will add state-specific authorizations for the select states and agencies where it can practice.

Resolution at the agency

Most cases never need to leave the agency. The EEOC closed 29,051 harassment charges in fiscal year 2023, according to agency data cited in the framework. Of those, 98.9% ended at the agency through settlements, withdrawals with benefits, successful conciliations, no-cause findings or administrative closures. Only 318 ended in unsuccessful conciliation. When an agency does find cause and a case needs to go to court, Thurgood transitions the finding and the developed record to an attorney in its network. "The firm does not pay Thurgood, and Thurgood takes no part of the firm's fee," the framework states. That follows American Bar Association (ABA) Model Rule 5.4(a), which prohibits lawyers from sharing legal fees with nonlawyers.¹

Use of AI

The framework also discloses how Thurgood uses artificial intelligence (AI). AI is optional at intake, where it pre-fills answers from the worker's own account. "It decides nothing," the framework states, and workers can change every AI-selected answer by hand.¹

Availability

The framework is available at askthurgood.com/non-attorney-representation.