Preamble

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ABA MODEL GUIDELINES FOR THE

UTILIZATION OF PARALEGAL SERVICES©

Preamble

The Standing Committee on Paralegals of the American Bar Association drafted,

and the ABA House of Delegates adopted, the ABA Model Guidelines for the Utilization of

L A “   M       

recommendations or guidelines for the utilization of services provided by paralegals. 1 All of

these recommendations or guidelines are intended to provide lawyers with useful and

authoritative guidance in working with paralegals.

T “ C     M G   

legal and policy developments that may have taken place since the last update in

2012. A Table of Contents and a Table of Authorities have been added, and the

C        T “ C   

view that these and other guidelines on paralegal services will encourage lawyer s to utilize

those services effectively and promote the continued growth of the paralegal profession. 2

The Standing Committee has based these 2018 revisions on the American Bar

A M ‘  P C  M ‘    

attempted to take into account existing state recommendations and guidelines, decided

authority and contemporary practice. Lawyers, of course, are to be first directed by M odel

Rule 5.3 in the utilization of paralegal services, and nothing contained in these Model

1 I   ABA B  G         I

1997, the ABA            A 

assistant or paralegal is a person qualified by education, training or work experience who is employed

or retained by a lawyer, law office, corporation, governmental agency or other entity who performs

           T  

             

   ould be aware that the terms legal assistant and paralegals are often

used interchangeably.

2 While necessarily mentioning paralegal conduct, lawyers are the intended audience of these

Guidelines. The Guidelines, therefore, are addressed to lawyer conduct and not directly to the

conduct of the paralegal.