SC21011 - Commonwealth Servicing Group, LLC v. Dept. of Banking ("In Persels & Associates, LLC v. Banking Commissioner, 318 Conn. 652, 122 A.3d 592 (2015) (Persels), we held that a law firm that provides debt negotiation services is presumed to be engaged in the practice of law and, thus, comes within the Judicial Branch’s exclusive authority to regulate the practice of law and falls outside of the statutory authority of the Commissioner of Banking (commissioner) to enforce Connecticut’s debt negotiation statutes, General Statutes §§ 36a-71 through 36a-671f. See id., 674–76. The primary question in this interlocutory appeal is whether a law firm and an entity that provides paraprofessional services to the law firm must exhaust their administrative remedies before seeking declaratory and injunctive relief in the Superior Court to adjudicate that threshold issue—whether the commissioner has exceeded his statutory authority by bringing an administrative enforcement action against them.
The plaintiffs, The Law Offices of Amber Florio, PLLC, doing business as Commonwealth Law Group (Commonwealth Law), and Commonwealth Servicing Group, LLC (Commonwealth Servicing), filed the underlying complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief, requesting that the trial court determine whether the administrative enforcement proceeding the commissioner had begun against Commonwealth Servicing exceeded the commissioner’s statutory enforcement authority.
The defendant, the Department of Banking, moved to dismiss the plaintiffs’ complaint on the ground that they had failed to exhaust their administrative remedies because the commissioner, not the court, must first determine the commissioner’s own authority to regulate the plaintiffs. On appeal, the defendant claims that the trial court incorrectly denied its motion to dismiss the plaintiffs’ complaint. We disagree and affirm the trial court’s decision.”)