No person, except as provided in § 16-18-2, may practice as an attorney and counselor at law in any court of record within this state, either by using or subscribing his or her own name or the name of any other person, without having previously obtained a license for that purpose from the Supreme Court of this state and having become an active member in good standing of the State Bar of South Dakota. A violation of this section is a Class 1 misdemeanor.
S.D. Codified Laws § 16-16-1
License from Supreme Court required to practice law--Active membership in state bar--Violation as misdemeanor
Applied in 3 court decisions — leading case State v. Escalante (1990)
Most recently applied in Danielson v. Lifescape (October 2025)
Source: SDC 1939 & Supp 1960, §§ 13.1255, 32.1101; SDCL, § 16-18-30; SL 1979, ch 150, § 14; SL 2001, ch 102, § 1.
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Official source: South Dakota Legislature. Reproduced from public-domain South Dakota statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.