Mind the Gap: Michigan’s Two Lawyer Regulators Pointed at Each Other, One Day Apart

A man who was never admitted to the Michigan bar reportedly told Detroit police he was an attorney. The complaint went to the State Bar, which closed it, and to the Attorney Grievance Commission, which sent it back to the State Bar. The two letters are dated one day apart.

The person who filed these complaints is the source for this story, and I am one of the journalists he briefed as it developed. Clutch Justice is not naming him. Last week he sent me two letters. Put them in date order and the problem explains itself.

He reported a man who is not a lawyer for telling police he was one. Michigan has two offices that regulate the practice of law. One closed his complaint without saying why. The next day, the other told him to file with the first one. If you have ever wondered what happens when a non-lawyer claims to be a lawyer in Michigan, here is the answer, on letterhead.

Who Was Reported

Brian Banks represented Detroit, Harper Woods and the Grosse Pointes in the Michigan House from 2013 until February 2017. He arrived with eight felony convictions from 1998 to 2004, mostly for bad checks and credit card fraud. In 2016, then-Attorney General Bill Schuette charged him with using fabricated pay stubs to obtain a credit union loan in 2010. On February 6, 2017, he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor of filing false financial statements, the felony counts were dropped, and he read his resignation letter in court.

Banks now runs two Detroit charter schools. He is superintendent and chief academic officer of MacDowell Preparatory Academy, and he founded Purpose Charter Academy, a K-8 school authorized by the Detroit Public Schools Community District and managed by The Purpose Group. Its full name is Purpose Charter Academy School for Law and Public Service. The school’s founder page bills him as “Dr. Brian Banks, J.D., Ph.D.” and lists a Juris Doctor from Michigan State University College of Law. The degree is real. A law degree is not a license, and the AGC’s own letter confirms the State Bar has no attorney by his name on its rolls.

What Was Reported

The complainant filed his first complaint with the State Bar’s UPL Department on August 31, 2026. On or about September 5, a process server delivered a civil complaint the complainant had filed against Banks. The service packet included the receipt for the State Bar complaint, so from that day forward Banks had paper notice that his conduct had been reported.

Four days later, on September 9, a parent arrived at Purpose Charter Academy with a police escort to pick up his children during a custody dispute. Banks is not a party to that case, not counsel in it and not a guardian ad litem. Detroit Police Report No. 26-0909-0176 records Banks identifying himself to the responding officers as an attorney. The officers escorted the father off the property. The complainant was not there. Banks told officers he had been, according to the supplemental complaint; a licensed process server had attended in his place.

On September 10, the complainant filed a supplemental complaint addressed to both the Attorney Grievance Commission and the State Bar, attaching the details of the September 9 incident and asking both offices to expedite. It was hand-delivered. The AGC stamped it received on September 16, 2026.

Door One: The State Bar

The State Bar’s authority over non-lawyers comes from Rule 16 of the Supreme Court Rules Concerning the State Bar of Michigan. Its UPL Department takes complaints, and its standing UPL Committee advises the Board of Commissioners, including on whether to file actions to enjoin unauthorized practice. Recommendations on specific prosecutions must be approved by the Board, and the whole program operates under the Michigan Supreme Court’s oversight.

On September 30, 2026, Senior Paralegal Amy Emmons wrote to the complainant that the department had concluded its investigation into File No. 26-UP-51. Based on the complaint and what the investigation found, the department had determined the matter did not meet the standards set by the UPL Committee to pursue it further. The letter says the decision does not constitute a final decision or finding that Banks has not engaged in the unauthorized practice of law. It says the complainant may have other remedies. It does not name them. It does not say which standard the complaint failed, what the investigation consisted of, or whether anyone looked at the police report. The file was administratively closed.

That is the entire explanation. The complaint did not meet a standard. The standard is not stated. The State Bar’s public UPL page offers a complaint form, consumer tips and a contact line. It does not publish the screening criteria the committee uses to decide which complaints are worth pursuing.

Door Two: The AGC

The Attorney Grievance Commission is the investigative and prosecutorial arm of Michigan’s attorney discipline system. Its jurisdiction runs to lawyers licensed in Michigan. A person who was never admitted is outside it, and the supplemental complaint was addressed to the State Bar as well as the AGC for exactly that reason.

On October 1, 2026, one day after the State Bar closed its file, Assistant Deputy Administrator Cynthia C. Bullington returned the complainant’s correspondence. The letter advises that the State Bar of Michigan “does not list an attorney by the name of Brian Banks.” It explains that the State Bar has jurisdiction over non-attorneys engaged in the practice of law, encloses a State Bar complaint form for his convenience, and says no further action will be taken by the AGC as to the complaint regarding Banks.

Read it once more. The reason the AGC gave for declining the complaint is that Banks is not a lawyer, which is the precise fact that makes telling police he is one a violation. The remedy it offered was a form for the office that had closed the file the afternoon before. The AGC held the filing for 15 days to send it back with directions to the door the complainant had already walked through.

What the Statute Actually Prohibits

MCL 600.916(1) is not one rule. It is three. An unlicensed person shall not practice law or engage in the law business. He shall not in any manner whatsoever lead others to believe that he is authorized to practice law. And he shall not in any manner whatsoever represent or designate himself as an attorney and counselor, attorney at law, or lawyer. A violation is contempt of the Michigan Supreme Court and of the circuit court in the county where it happened.

The first prohibition is the hard one. Michigan has never adopted a rule-based definition of the practice of law. The Michigan Supreme Court addressed it case by case, most notably in Dressel v Ameribank, 468 Mich 557 (2003), where it tied the practice of law to counseling or assisting another person in matters that require legal judgment. The State Bar asked the Court to codify a definition as State Bar Rule 16.1. In 2014, its UPL Committee reported that the Court had declined to publish the proposal for comment. The State Bar’s own UPL page describes unauthorized practice in the same terms: exercising legal discretion on someone else’s behalf.

The second and third prohibitions are not hard at all. They do not ask whether anyone received legal advice, whether a fee changed hands, or whether a client exists. They ask whether a person who is not licensed told someone he is a lawyer. If a complaint is screened only against the first prohibition, a pure holding-out case can fail the screen every time while sitting squarely inside the statute. Whether that is what happened to File No. 26-UP-51, the closure letter does not say. That is one of the questions Clutch Justice has put to the State Bar.

It also matters who was told. Telling a parent at a school event that you are a lawyer is a misrepresentation. Telling uniformed officers responding to a custody dispute, and then watching them act on it, is a misrepresentation that moved state power. The father was the one escorted off the property.

Where a Complainant Is Supposed to Go

Strip away the letterhead and the remaining routes are short. The statute makes the conduct contempt of court, which puts it within reach of a prosecutor. The supplemental complaint asked the regulators to coordinate with the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office on the September 9 statements; neither letter mentions doing so. The State Bar letter’s reference to other remedies is the only acknowledgment that any exist, and it does not point to one.

The question of who governs the school where this happened is also open. Purpose Charter Academy’s own website lists its board chair as Hon. Cylenthia LaToye Miller, a judge of the Third Circuit Court, and its vice chair as Lamar Moreland, an assistant attorney general. The complainant wrote to Attorney General Dana Nessel about Moreland’s board service on September 10 and has not received a response. On September 24, the Judicial Tenure Commission acknowledged five requests for investigation he filed and assigned them to staff for review. The AGC’s October 1 letter addresses only the complaint about Banks.

On October 7, Clutch Justice asked the State Bar’s UPL Department to identify the committee standards cited in its closure letter, to say whether it treats holding oneself out as an attorney as within its jurisdiction when no legal services are provided, and to say where it sends complainants whose files it closes. This article will be updated with any response.

What Fixing It Would Actually Require

None of this requires new law. It requires the two offices that already exist to stop handing complainants the edge of each other’s jurisdiction.

First, the UPL Committee’s screening standards should be published. If a complaint is closed for failing a standard, the complainant and the public are entitled to know what the standard is. Second, a closure letter should state which category of reason applies: insufficient evidence, conduct outside the statute, a matter better suited to a prosecutor, or a policy choice not to pursue holding-out cases without a client. One sentence of reason costs nothing and tells the complainant where to go next.

Third, the AGC should forward misdirected filings about non-lawyers to the UPL Department with notice to the complainant, rather than mailing them back with a blank form. A complainant who addressed both offices should not have to learn the org chart from rejection letters. Fourth, when the State Bar declines to seek an injunction over conduct the statute already makes contempt, it should have a written path for transmitting the file to the county prosecutor, and it should tell the complainant whether it used it. Finally, the Michigan Supreme Court’s 2014 decision not to publish a definition of the practice of law for comment left the hardest prong undefined. Any revisit should state plainly that the holding-out prohibitions stand on their own.

Why This Matters

An unauthorized practice statute exists because a law license is a public credential, and people act on it. Police officers act on it. Parents act on it. A school community that hears its founder is a lawyer acts on it. When a person with no license tells officers he is an attorney and they move a father off the property, the harm is not abstract, and it is the harm the statute was written to prevent.

The complainant did what the system tells the public to do. He documented the conduct, filed with the office that has jurisdiction, supplemented when it happened again after notice, and copied the office that regulates lawyers. Thirty days later he holds two letters that each point somewhere else. One says the matter did not meet a standard. The other says the man is not a lawyer. Neither tells him where to go. I asked the State Bar that question, and I will report the answer when it comes. If you have filed a UPL complaint in Michigan and received a closure like this one, send it through Clutch Intel.