Blog Glob: "New legal services provider proposal creates controversy in Washington state"
Excerpt from "New legal services provider proposal creates controversy in Washington state" (Puget Sound Business Journal - subscription required):
Many local attorneys are concerned about a proposal before the state Supreme Court that would allow nonlawyers to practice law in certain limited circumstances.
The proposed rule would create a new kind of legal-services provider called a “legal technician,” who could provide some assistance with family law issues, presumably at a lower cost than legal services from a lawyer.
The proposal pits the legal profession’s long-standing goal of making legal services more affordable and accessible against concerns about maintaining high professional standards. A number of small firms, solo practitioners and other family lawyers say the proposed rule may not only undermine their business, but leave clients in more serious legal trouble than if they’d hired an attorney in the first place.
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The proposal offered by the Practice of Law Board, a panel created by the state Supreme Court, would create a pilot program that would authorize legal technicians to practice in certain areas of family law. Legal technicians could help a client with the preparation of documents necessary for child support and
could draft petitions for dissolution or parenting plans. But they wouldn’t be able to negotiate with opposing parties or appear in court. Legal technicians would be somewhere between lawyers and paralegals — trained, tested and certified to provide certain services, and subject to ethical and regulatory guidelines, but restricted from many of the functions lawyers can perform.
If the pilot program is successful, legal technicians could eventually practice in areas such as elder law and landlord/tenant law.
Advocates say that legal technicians would help expand access to legal services for low- and moderate-income people, who are badly underserved by the current system.
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