Is An Assignment a Means of Avoiding the Rule an LLC Must be Represented by an Attorney?

Is An Assignment a Means of Avoiding the Rule an LLC Must be Represented by an Attorney?

The rule is that artificial legal bodies such as corporations and LLCs may appear in court only through a licensed attorney; with only vanishingly small exceptions such as some small claims courts a corporation or LLC cannot appear in court “pro se” through an officer or manager.  It has as well long been the rule that an organization cannot assign its claim to an individual in order to circumvent that rule. A recent decision from South Dakota brings the application of that rule into question.

 In Thomas Mattson v. Rosebud Elec. Cooperative, 2025 WL 3208889 (D.S.D. Nov 17, 2025), after the LLC’s previous action was dismissed for lack of personal jurisdiction and a declaration that the LLCs must be represented by attorneys, the LLCs assigned their claims to the apparent sole member, who then filed this action. While this action would be on the merits dismissed , as to pro se representation the court wrote:

In federal court, corporations and LLCs must be represented by counsel and may not proceed pro se. “While 28 U.S.C. § 1654 protects parties rights to plead and conduct their own cases, that right has never been interpreted to allow an individual to appear for a corporation pro se.”  A non-lawyer who seeks to represent the interests of a corporation or an LLC “constitutes the unauthorized practice of law and results in a nullity.”  An assignment does not alter this rule: “Federal courts have refused to countenance circumvention of the requirement that a corporation be represented by counsel through the corporation’s assignment of a claim to a non-lawyer.”  Id., *23 (citations omitted).

But then the court stated:

Prelude’s alleged assignment of its claims to Mattson at least in this instance does not circumvent “the requirement that a corporation be represented by counsel through the corporation’s assignment of a claim to a non-lawyer.” Mattson cannot bring Prelude’s claims pro se and is not purporting to do so. The motion to strike is denied, but for reasons explained above, the case must be dismissed. Id.

On what basis the court would have allowed the non-attorney to prosecute those assigned claims when it had already stated the rule “An assignment does not alter this rule” is unclear.