CBA Record

LEGAL ETHICS

John Levin’s Ethics columns, which are published in each CBA Record, are now in-

dexed and available online. For more, go to http://johnlevin.info/ legalethics/.

BY JOHN LEVIN Non-Lawyer Legal Practitioners– A Coming Trend T he previous column discussed the lack of affordable legal services to the middle class, even though there

ETHICS QUESTIONS? The CBA’s Professional Responsibility Commit- tee can help. Submit hypothetical questions to Loretta Wells, CBA Government Affairs Direc- tor, by fax 312/554-2054 or e-mail lwells@ chicagobar.org.

represent litigants in court. The program to license these practitioners in specific areas of the law in currently in progress. Arizona has provided for “Certified Legal Document Preparers” who can perform certain functions normally performed by lawyers. California has instituted the categories of “Legal Document Assistant” and “Unlawful Detainer Assistant” with similar capabilities. There are two ways of looking at the economic impact of such programs on the legal profession. In a macro view, the programs should have a minimal impact. By far, the majority of people using a “legal technician” would otherwise go unrepre- sented. In fact, much as a nurse practitioner may refer a particular case to a physician, there will be instances where the legal technician will refer cases that otherwise would never receive attention to lawyers. On the other hand, in a micro view, there will no doubt be cases where the specific client will refer a simple matter to a legal technician rather than a lawyer simply because it is cheaper. These situa- tions will either take business away from a lawyer, force the lawyer to reduce fees to match that of the technician, or encourage the lawyer to have technicians on staff to perform the work (much as doctors have nurse practitioners on staff). To date, the organized bar has not been uniformly supportive of the development of non-lawyer legal practitioners. Support has come from the bench and the lay public. The consensus in the press and blogosphere, however, is that more and more jurisdictions will provide for the licensing of non-lawyer practitioners. The bar should prepare for the change.

appears to be a surplus of lawyers available to provide those services. One reason for this situation is that the cost of obtaining a law degree (in both time and money) is so high that the fees necessary to recover and earn a return on the investment require a fee structure that prices legal services out of the reach of many. The use of licensed paralegals has low- ered some of the costs of providing legal services, but paralegals must work under the direction of a lawyer. Another solution to this problem is to create a new class of legal provider–analogous to a nurse practi- tioner or physician’s assistant in the medi- cal profession–who can perform certain services without supervision. This class of provider would be trained at a lower cost than attorneys and could provide limited services at a lower fee. This is the topic of many discussions in the blogosphere and is the subject of an extensive note in the Cardozo Law Review [35 Cardozo L. Rev. 2043 (June 2014)]. The State of Washington supreme court recently adopted a rule allowing the licens- ing of “Limited License Legal Technicians”. These practitioners will be able to provide legal assistance, including advice to unrep- resented litigants, but will not be able to

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John Levin is the retired Assis- tant General Counsel of GATX Corporation and a member of the CBARecord Editorial Board.

48 APRIL/MAY 2015