Joel, I think he was referring to my rebuttle to you as being unreasearched. Which it was. I was just trying to throw what little I knew into the hopper and see what came out.

And I am still curious about where the line is, for doctors, between legal and meaningful restrictions practice and upholding the hippocratic oath and what being licensed *somewhere* has to do with any of it.

Erik, didn't I state almost exactly what Lazarus wrote without the legal terms? I did say that a lawyer could practice out of state with a waiver. What is the Pro Hac Vice motion? Sounds like a waiver to me.

And I know for a fact that a doctor can't practice in a state where he or she is not board-certified because this is what my doctor friends have told me numerous times.

Can you tell me where my factual errors are, Erik?

#6: Canadian courts don't use wigs anymore for either lawyers or judges - robes yes, wigs no - and in fact I don't know when Canadian lawyers gave up wigs. The robes are eminently practical in that it serves as a sort of uniform for trial council.

Things I hate about blogs:
People not doing their research before posting something.

Thanks Lazarus, I wouldn't have gone into as much detail into Pro Hac.

@ 8: Actually, Lazarus, that's a terriffic amount! I'll be the first to admit I only did a cursory googling, and I'm glad that someone with actual, you know, knowledge stepped up.
I do wonder, more specifically to the Grey's Anatomy case, how licensure, reciprocity and so forth square with the hypocratic oath and a doctor's obligation to treat the patient in front of them, as it were. Obviously with Grey's, the fact that it wasn't a life threatening ailment that the plastic surgeon was going after is a factor, but the larger question remains.

Ahem...

It's called fiction because the characters and events and the world they're in are FICTIONAL. DNA isn't processed from a crime scene within an hour. Murder cases aren't tried in a day. Crime scene techs don't carry guns. People can't be beamed from one place to another. But those facts haven't stopped CSI, LAW AND ORDER, LAW AND ORDER SVU, PERRY MASON, CSI MIAMI, and STAR TREK from being huge hits. If the show works, and you're drawn into the story and the characters, reality isn't important. Nobody cares if Matlock can't practice in Atlanta or if it's ridiculous for CSI techs to carry guns and drive chrome-plated hummers. Its TV.

#5) Actually, in terms of lawyers the reciprocity agreements tend to relate to the licensing exams (the bar) not the ability to practice in a particular state. In order for a lawyer from another state to practice with out passing & being admitted to the bar of that state, they must file a Pro Hac Vice motion that gives them special dispensation from the Court to practice in that state solely in regards to and for the purpose of that particular case. Even once admitted lawyers are required to work with a local counsel who must co-sign all legal documents. Lawyers allowed to practice under these circumstances are required to pay all dues and fees as if they were members of that local bar association. These arrangements are done in part to guarantee the client a lawyer familiar with a particular states idiosyncratic laws and in part to protect the local lawyers in each jurisdictions-- in order for any case to be tried in a particular region, a local lawyer must be on the case.

Now, it is possible for a lawyer to be admitted in multiple jurisdictions, but they are required to pass the state bar (or pass a state bar with reciprocity) in EACH state and pay yearly dues to the Bar association of those states. On top of that, every court (state, district, circuit, supreme) have their own, complicated, admissions process requiring fees, character validiations, etc.. Needless to say, you can't simply walk into a state court and start arguing a case (let alone the Supreme Court).

And that was probably more info than y'all wanted.

I have only one thing to add to this. Me. Denny Crane. Denny Crane. Denny Crane.

IIRC, in the Candian episode of BL, they only appeared as "freinds of the court" to lend their big names to the case. The wearing of wigs and robes was done out of respect for the Candian courts.

Lots of states, I believe, have what are called reciprocity agreements for all sorts of things that require a license, practice of medicine or law, shipping of liquor, possession of a firearms--at least according to my googling (and my attempts to get booze shipped to Texas).

What the agreements mean is that if you're licenced to do one of these things in a state, you're allowed to also do them in any state that's got a reciprocal agreement with that state. Now, obviously not every state's got one with every other state, and it's not been federalized like driver's licences and marriage licenses so it's not across the board, but it does provide at least the whiff of probability to these scenarios.

Probably not the Canadian one, though. That's just crazy.