Article

• Publication year: 2014
• Pages: 43
• Citation: Vol. 27 No. 6 Pg. 43

Article Vol. 27 No. 6 Pg. 43 Utah Bar Journal December, 2014

November, 2014

ABA Task Force Recommends licensing Limited Legal Technicians

Peter Strand, J.

I am writing this in response to the report of the American Bar Association Task Force on the Future of Legal Education (the Task Force). The Task Force was created in 2012 and was charged with recommending to the ABA how agencies involved in the practice of law can take steps to address issues concerning the economics of legal education. I must admit I failed to take notice of the Task Force's laudable appointment as I, like so many of my colleagues, was struggling to provide the best value I could for my clients and community in an ever more fast-paced legal market. So it was nearly three months after the Task Force released its final report that I managed to find the time to peruse its recommendations.

Much of the report focuses on well-known problems within the legal education market, such as the high burden that expensive legal education places on attorneys, the scarcity of jobs paying traditional legal salaries, overly standardized education lacking in practical skills training, and other basic issues. For each issue the Task Force provides at least one recommendation to help address these concerns, such as a recommendation for legal bar associations to remove or reduce standards that inhibit experimentation in legal education. ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, Report of the Task Force on the Future of Legal Education, 27 (Jan. 23, 2014), available at http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/ professional_responsibility/report_and_recommendations_of_ aba_task_force.authcheckdam.pdf. It is with only one of the Task Force's recommendations that I take umbrage, and in this article, I set out to provide reason for the legal bar associations to stridently refuse this recommendation.

The Recommendation

Nearly every lawyer actively engaged in the practice of law has recognized the dual dangers presented to his or her profession by the flooding of the legal market with more attorneys than it can handle and the ever increasing groups, software, and websites that invade the practice of law by providing legal forms, advice, and, in some cases, actual representation. The prevalence of new methods for receiving legal services that were previously available only from attorneys has proven itself both powerful and lasting. The Task Force even refers to the problem in its report, referring to the large number of recent law graduates and their inability to get the type of employment they anticipated when they chose to attend law school. See id. at 13. However, the Task Force alludes to the oversaturation of the market with attorneys seemingly only as an introduction to the idea that there are areas that...