Among the non-traditional stakeholders who contribute so much to the delivery of legal services, technology trainers hold a special place in the heart of my little lawyer. While this new level of legal service providers is rapidly spreading across the country, these professionals have been providing high-quality ethical legal services in specific locations for more than a decade. Research shows that these licensed and regulated professionals, who are not lawyers, can represent clients in limited cases that they handle as well or better than lawyers. The IAALS Allied Legal Professionals project will establish a national reflection on best practices around Allied Legal Professionals programs by: In addition, research from the IAALS Cases Without Counsel study suggests that people who need legal assistance are willing to receive it from qualified and authorized providers who are not lawyers: Hiring a lawyer when faced with legal problems, Most people need considerable money or have so little money that they qualify for the limited legal aid available. The majority of people live in the middle and are excluded from the equation – what some call “the missing environment”. Through this project, we intend to contribute to the standardization of a new level of lawyers that has the potential to increase the number of people who can receive legal assistance. By promoting the need and usefulness of allied lawyers – and encouraging their growth and membership – we can make progress in closing the justice gaps in our society. At the top and bottom of the income scale, the legal needs of Americans remain unmet. The inability to pay a lawyer has led, among other things, to greater self-representation in our justice system, with more than 70% of civil and family cases involving a party without a lawyer. Not only do people in these situations face life-changing challenges on their own – such as custody hearings or landlord and tenant issues – but they also face disproportionately poor outcomes in their cases.
Allied lawyers hold the key to providing more accessible and affordable legal assistance where it is most needed. Like nurses, research on allied lawyers shows great potential for a more profitable and excellent public service – and IAALS` Allied Legal Professionals project is working to standardize and expand these successful programs nationwide. By non-traditional speakers, I mean anyone other than that. “It`s better to have someone who has at least some knowledge of the system than to try to navigate it on your own if you don`t know anything.” “If you go through that, frankly, at this point, everyone – whether they`re a lawyer or not – if they`re qualified to give you that advice, you`d appreciate it.” Lawyers who entered the profession when the standard means of production were a voice recorder and a dedicated secretary will send me an email without any sense of irony to tell me that technology has no bearing on how they practice law. One of the most underestimated features of the technology is how quickly it can be assimilated.