ABA midyear meeting. Rethinking Regulations
| Author | Matt Reynolds |
| Pages | 60-61 |
ABA president-elect nominee
Reginald Turner speaks before the
ABA House of Delegates.
ABA MIDYEAR MEETING
Rethinking Regulations
To increase access to justice, jurisdictions should consider innovative
approaches, ABA House says
BY MATT REYNOLDS
The ABA House of Delegates
passed a controversial reso-
lution encouraging states to
adopt regulatory innovations
to expand civil legal services to more
Americans.
The House adopted Resolution 115
with broad support, even though it had
spurred intense debate.
The ABA Center for Innovation and
four ABA standing committees spon-
sored the resolution, which encourages
U.S. jurisdictions to consider regulatory
innovations that expand legal services.
Proponents of the access-to-justice
movement argue qualied professionals
can provide limited legal services even if
they are not licensed attorneys.
Several states have proposed or cre-
ated changes expanding access, accord-
ing to the center’s report accompanying
the resolution.
Speaking in support of an amended
resolution, Judge Lora Livingston of
the 261st Civil District Court in Texas,
who is a member of the ABA Center for
Innovation’s governing council, encour-
aged delegates to adopt it.
“We don’t deny justice on the basis
of race, gender or sexual orientation,
and we should certainly not deny
justice on the basis of poverty or one’s
economic status. That’s not justice,”
Livingston said.
Affordable legal assistance in civil
cases is often beyond the grasp of many
Americans living below the poverty line,
according to the report to the House of
Delegates. Middle-income wage earners
also struggle to secure representation
in child custody, eviction and foreclo-
sure cases.
An earlier version of the report irked
opponents because it cited U.S. Supreme
Court Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, who has
talked about easing bar rules that pre-
vent lawyers from partnering or sharing
fees with nonlawyers.
Several state bar associations were
worried that changing rules of profes-
sional conduct could compromise a
lawyer’s independence or ethics.
Eleana Drakatos, president of
the Ohio State Bar Association and
a lawyer at Yacobozzi Drakatos in
Columbus, opposed Resolution 115. In
a Jan. 23 letter sent to her association’s
members, Drakatos said that while she
agreed that more must be done, the
association was “vehemently opposed
to nonlawyer ownership in law rms.”
Although Drakatos supported using
trained courthouse facilitators, licensed
attorneys should always supervise non-
lawyers, she stated.
“Ultimately, we believe that the
primary focus of bar associations
should be on connecting the underrep-
resented with attorneys, and in working
to overcome the persistent misconcep-
tion that the average consumer can’t
afford to hire a lawyer,” Drakatos wrote
in the two-page letter.
The tide turns
But by the time the amended resolution
came to the oor, opposition had faded.
Henry Greenberg, president of the
New York State Bar Association, a
member of the House of Delegates and
a shareholder at Greenberg Traurig in
Albany, said his association was “full
throated” in its opposition but had
come around as changes were made to
the nal resolution and report.
Resolution 115 “is not just a right
thing to do, the moral thing to do—for
ourselves, for our clients—but for our
profession, it’s a smart thing to do,”
Greenberg said.
Calendar Committee, the Committee
on Issues of Concern to the Profession,
and the Committee on Credentials and
Admissions. He is also a past president
of the National Bar Association and the
State Bar of Michigan.
He told the House he has seen the
lawyer’s oath come alive each day
through the work of lawyers and judg-
es, and particularly through the ABA.
Turner also said the obligation to
pursue access to justice—or what he
calls “true justice”—can be fullled in
many ways, including through pro bono
publico. Even if attorneys are unable to
take cases for people who cannot afford
legal services, he encouraged them to
support ABA entities that help meet this
obligation.
Turner is slated to become the pres-
ident-elect after the close of the 2020
ABA Annual Meeting in Chicago when
Patricia Lee Refo begins her presidency.
He will serve as president from the close
of the 2021 annual meeting in Toronto
through the 2022 annual meeting in
Chicago. Q
ABA Insider | ABA MIDYEAR MEETING
Photo by Mitch Higgins/ABA Media Relations
ABA JOURNAL | APRIL-MAY 2020
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