TO ALL THE LAWYERS

While the need for a posting to be removed may be of significant import to person(s) involved, pretending to be a lawyer should not be the course of action [refer to article below]. I would suggest emailing the owner of the blog to [kindly] request the post be deleted.

A 56-year-old Daly City woman who pretended to be an attorney and offered to represent a man at a parole hearing was sentenced Tuesday to 10 months in jail.

Isolina Fonseca Picon — whose other claim to fame was suing the San Mateo County coroner for keeping her son’s heart for testing after he died — was also placed on three years’ probation by Superior Court Judge Lisa Novak.

The fake-attorney case began when a South San Francisco woman went looking for an attorney for her brother, a state prison inmate who was facing an upcoming parole hearing, according to police and prosecutors, who would not divulge either sibling’s name.

A friend of the woman told her about Picon, describing her as a “Christian Latina” lawyer, prosecutors said. The woman contacted Picon, who said she would be happy to represent her brother at the 2005 parole hearing and gave her a business card that had “attorney at law” on it, said District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe.

Over the next two years, the woman gave $7,500 in cash and checks to Picon, Wagstaffe said. Picon even came to the San Francisco restaurant the woman owned and ate for free, authorities said.

But when the inmate told his sister that Picon had never come to see him, let alone helped him at his hearing, Picon suddenly became hard to reach. The woman and her family checked with the State Bar and learned Picon wasn’t even an attorney.

In November, Picon pleaded no contest to burglary.

Two months earlier, the state Supreme Court refused to let Picon sue the coroner for keeping her son’s heart for several weeks of study and testing after he died of heart failure.