Frequently Asked Questions About Licensed Legal Paraprofessionals

• Publication year: 2023
• Pages: 06

Frequently Asked Questions About Licensed Legal Paraprofessionals Vol. 52, No. 5 [Page 06] Colorado Lawyer June, 2023

Law Practice Management

Licensed legal paraprofessionals (LLPs) do not yet exist in Colorado'”but that will change sometime in 2024. Under court rules approved by the Colorado Supreme Court in March 2023, paralegals and other legal paraprofessionals can apply for licensure to provide certain legal services in certain types of family law matters. Below are some helpful FAQs about the new LLP program.

What will LLPs be allowed to do?

CRCP 207.1 governs the scope of an LLP's practice of law in Colorado. LLPs can represent clients in marital/civil union dissolutions and legal separations; allocations of parental responsibility; establishing, enforcing, and modifying child support; name changes; protective orders; adult gender designation changes; and remedial contempt associated with that scope of practice. LLPs will be able to advise those clients, prepare and file papers in court, assist clients in mediation, and with some important limitations, appear at hearings. A longer description ofwhat LLPs can do is set forth at CRCP 207.1(g). Civil and ethical rules requiring lawyers to have a good-faith basis for their filings and statements would apply to LLPs as well.

What will LLPs be prohibited from doing?

CRCP 207.1 lists the types of matters and services that an LLP cannot handle by themselves, and for those situations, a client must obtain the services of a licensed attorney or handle the matter themselves. An LLP still can assist in such situations under the supervision of a licensed attorney.

The matters and issues outside the authorized scope of an LLP's practice of law are:

■ the registration of foreign orders;

■ motions for or orders regarding punitive contempt citations under CRCP 107;

■ matters involving an allegation of common law marriage;

■ matters involving disputed parentage where there are more than two persons asserting or denying legal parentage;

■ matters in which a non-parent's request for allocation of parental responsibility is contested by at least one parent;

■ the preparation of or litigation regarding pre- or post-nuptial agreements;

■ matters in which a party is a beneficiary of a trust and information about the trust will be relevant to resolution of the

matter;

■ matters in which a party intends to contest jurisdiction of the court over the matter;

■ the preparation by the LLP of a qualified domestic relations order or other document allocating retirement assets that are not liquid at the time of the matter;

■ the preparation by the LLP of documents needed to effectuate the sale or distribution of assets of a business entity or commercial property;

■ matters in...