COMES NOW Plaintiff Marc Perkel, to ask that this court prohibit Defendants Duncan from representing defendants Wear, Sharp and The Bar Plan. A defendant in a lawsuit can not act as an attorney for another defendant. The Plaintiff has made his arguments as to why this is so in his brief he filed with his pleading. This issue is one of the subjects of this suit.

On February 2^nd 1998, Plaintiff served all the defendants by mail and included a "Notice and Acknowledgement by Mail" form for each defendant to fill out and return within the 20 day period. On these forms Mr. Wear and Mr. Sharp indicated that they were representing themselves and their law firm. Mr. Duncan indicated the he was representing himself and his law firm, and Karen McCarthy represented The Bar Plan. Although the Plaintiff can't be sure that the Acknowledgement for Service form constitutes an appearance by counsel, it was at least misleading. On March 10^th 1998 Defendant Donald Duncan filed a motion to dismiss in behalf of himself, his firm, Mr. Wear, Mr. Sharp, and The Bar Plan, making an appearance claiming to be attorney for all these defendants.

No matter how many times they try it and no matter that Judge Syler tried to let them get away with it in state court, a defendant representing a defendant is the very definition of conflict of interest. The concept of defendants representing defendants makes lawyers and judges I've talked to laugh at the idea. If this court is going to allow defendants to represent defendants, why not let Mr. Duncan represent Judge Syler? Why not let Mr. Duncan represent Ms. Stringfellow? Why not let Mr. Duncan represent the Plaintiff? These people are all lawyers and they know better. They're tampering with the administration of justice and their motions to dismiss should be stricken and default judgement entered in favor of the Plaintiff.

The Plaintiff is representing himself. However, if the Plaintiff decided to be represented by counsel, he would have a real problem in that the Plaintiff's attorney wouldn't be able to communicate with Ms. Stringfellow's attorney because Ms. Stringfellow's attorney is also a defendant who is represented by counsel (who is also a defendant). The defendant's mock the judicial system and are trying to turn this case into a circus.

The very fact that the defendants are attempting to represent other defendants implies that the defendants believe that this court is so corrupted that it will allow them to get away with it. It would appear that the defendants believe that the "fix is in" and that this court is going to take care of them. If I were a judge, I would be offended by their expectation that they can get away with breaking the rules. On the other hand, Judge Syler had no problem with lawyers breaking the rules. He thinks it's just fine for one defendant to represent another. He doesn't have a problem with lawyers altering dates on documents. He doesn't have a problem with lawyers filing a false sworn affidavit claiming things to be true facts that are scientifically impossible. Judge Syler was quite willing to stop discovery after Mr. Sharp was caught tampering with evidence. Based on what they have been allowed by the courts to get away with, it's clear as to why they might expect this c ourt to take care of them to.

Here is a case of a pro se litigant who is trying to get a little justice up against the big insurance company, The Bar Plan. If the Plaintiff won this suit it would cost every lawyer in the State of Missouri about $2000 each in increased malpractice premiums. What kind of a precedent would it set if pro se litigants started winning law suits against lawyers for fraud? What kind of a legal system would we have then? Why lawyers would actually have to obey the rules! We're talking about lawyers having to be honest in court. It would be a disaster of biblical proportions. Thus the Plaintiff can see where they can expect this court to not "upset the apple cart".

The question before this court is, where are your loyalties? Is this court here to uphold the law, the Constitution, and serve the public? Or is this court here to protect the self interests of the legal community? Is this court going to allow defendants to represent defendants?

WHEREFORE, Plaintiff prays that the court will:

1. Issue an immediate order to prohibit defendants from representing other defendants and sanction them for attempting to do so.
2. Strike the motions of defendants to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction due to improper representation because a defendant can not represent another defendant.
3. If a hearing is necessary, Plaintiff asks for an immediate hearing to resolve all issues of representation.

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Marc Perkel - Plaintiff - 03-13-98