In the "should've known better department": Lawyer suspended for using disbarred lawyer as co-counsel

It's called "unauthorized practice of law." State bar associations go after this heavily - and it's illegal when a lawyer does it, or helps another lawyer to do it.

Article here. (aba journal).

A solo practitioner in New York state has been suspended for two years because he hired a disbarred lawyer, an old law school friend, as a paralegal and then gave the friend great autonomy.

Dean Gary Weber of Westbury, New York, was suspended for two years for assisting a nonlawyer in the practice of law, the New York Law Journal reports. The Legal Profession Blog quoted from the Jan. 28 opinion imposing the suspension by the New York Appellate Division, Second Department.