Access to Legal Services: Lessons from the Medical Profession (Part 3 of 3)

This is the final instalment of a three-part series on access to legal services. In Part 1, I argued that the crisis facing access to legal services is precipitated by a fundamental mismatch between supply and demand: we simply can’t increase the number of practising lawyers fast enough to meet the rise in demand for legal services. In Part 2, I contrasted lawyers’ professional monopoly on providing legal services with the health sector, in which a myriad of different kinds of doctors, nurses, pharmacists, physiotherapists, and other service providers all have a role to play in delivering health services to the public. The model adopted in the health sector has been successful because it enables more service providers to be trained and hired at a lower cost, increasing access to service. At the same time, a robust but flexible model of training, accreditation, and disciplinary oversight ensures that access does not come at the cost of quality of service.

Today, I would like to close the loop by examining some ways in which the legal profession can learn from the health sector. First, I will argue that the legal profession is already losing its monopoly on providing legal services through a series of domestic and international examples. Second, I will posit some possible emerging new job categories in the legal profession that could, if supported by law societies, allow non-lawyers to offer an extensive range of legal services without compromising quality of service. Finally, I will address some possible objections that might be raised against my proposals and consider some pragmatic barriers to moving forward.

As I have argued throughout this series, the legal profession must reject the long-held proposition that lawyers are or ought to be the exclusive providers of legal services. While some argue that only a lawyer can properly identify and address a client’s legal issues, there are already a considerable number of non-lawyers providing high-quality legal services both at home and abroad. To that end, I want to discuss the following examples:

paralegals;
student legal aid lawyers;
social benefit advocates;
patent agents and trade-mark agents;
real estate agents and financial professionals; and,
Japanese shihÅ shoshi and gyÅsei shoshi.

Examples of Non-Lawyer Legal Service Providers

Paralegals

The most salient example in Canada of non-lawyers working in the legal services sector is that of the paralegal. In Canada, paralegals typically work as assistants to lawyers in order to support the lawyer in providing services to clients. In Ontario, paralegals are regulated by the Law Society of Upper Canada under the authority of the Access to Justice Act and are subject to prescribed educational prerequisites and a professional code of conduct. Paralegals undertake a wide range of legal work under the supervision of a lawyer, requiring a thorough understanding of both substantive and procedural laws in their jurisdiction. However, paralegals are not authorized to provide legal advice or representation to clients directly.

Student Legal Aid Lawyers

In part to help meet the demand for legal aid services in Winnipeg and in part to give courtroom experience to law students, Manitoba Legal Aid operates a student legal aid clinic at the Robson Hall Faculty of Law. Working under the supervision of lawyers and faculty, second and third year law students handle criminal matters in which jail is not likely, as well as some civil files. Students handle the file from intake to disposition, including making court appearances and even conducting trials. Every year, the centre handles hundreds of criminal files for defendants who would not otherwise qualify for legal aid representation. The students are regulated by the Law Society of Manitoba.

What is interesting about this clinic, from my perspective, is that it implicitly acknowledges that the full qualifications of a lawyer may not be necessary to handle simple criminal defence matters. By definition, none of the student lawyers has graduated from law school, completed an articling year, or been called to the bar. In fact, the only prerequisite for volunteers is the successful completion of one year of law school (students cannot handle trials on their own until they have completed a second year course in the law of evidence). This means that most of the volunteers at the clinic have only taken a single credit course in criminal law. Implicitly, the Law Society seems to be acknowledging that the completion of law school and articling are not necessary in order to provide defendants with adequate representation in minor criminal matters.

Social Benefits Advocates

The advent of the welfare state brought with it a myriad of new social benefits that qualifying citizens can obtain by application to the government. Unfortunately, ambiguities in qualifying criteria and complexities in application processes sometimes make it difficult for citizens to obtain the benefits to which they are entitled. In many cases, the value of social benefits is small compared to the fees that would be required to hire a lawyer. This creates a vacuum in which there is a need for advice and advocacy, but few lawyers willing to work for the remuneration available in the area.

Increasingly, this vacuum is being filled by non-lawyers who, for whatever reason, have specialized expertise in the workings of a particular area of government social benefits. As an example, I point to local Winnipeg company Brematson & Associates, Inc. which provides services to persons living with disabilities in accessing government disability benefits. Company founder Susana Scott advises clients on the ins and outs of disability tax credits and provides assistance in obtaining the medical documentation required to qualify. In carrying out these services, Scott’s job includes elements of statutory interpretation, providing legal or practical advice to clients, and even representation and advocacy.

This is just one specific example, but it is indicative of a broader trend in relation to the welfare state. As the scope of government programs and benefits increases, so too does the public’s need for interpretation, advice, and assistance in relation to obtaining government benefits. Yet in many cases, hiring a lawyer to provide these services would be tantamount to killing a fly with a sledgehammer. This is fertile ground for non-lawyers to provide much needed legal or quasi-legal advice to the public.

Patent Agents & Trade-mark Agents

Patent agents are individuals with specialized qualifications relating to patent laws and the procedures related to obtaining patents. In Canada, registered patent agents must complete a series of qualifying examinations and practice in the patents field for at least one year. Under the authority of the Patent Act, registered patent agents can represent clients applying for patent protection from the Canadian Patent Office.

Trade-mark agents, under the authority of the Trade-marks Act, provide similar services for clients in relation to registering trade-marks with the Trade-marks Office.

Real Estate Agents & Financial Professionals

There are also numerous professions in which specialized knowledge of a particular area of the law is necessarily incidental to the job. Real estate agents, for example, must be able to foresee possible legal issues and provide practical advice to clients in relation to their rights and obligations when buying or selling a home. Similarly, accountants and other financial professionals must have a detailed knowledge of the legal implications of their work. In particular, extensive knowledge of the Income Tax Act is an essential prerequisite for the job.

Japanese ShihÅ Shoshi and GyÅsei Shoshi

The Japanese legal system has gone a step further than Canada in recognizing two categories of legal service providers other than lawyers. ShihÅ shoshi, or judicial scriveners, perform a role similar to that of a solicitor. They represent clients in real estate and commercial transactions, prepare documents for filing in court, and may even represent clients in summary courts or in alternative dispute resolution proceedings. However, they are not permitted to represent clients in the higher courts. Like bengoshi (attorneys at law), shihÅ shoshi are professionally regulated and must pass a series of exams prior to admittance to the profession which test knowledge of key areas of Japanese legislation. Once admitted to the profession, shihÅ shoshi must maintain membership in the judicial scrivener association in their prefecture.

GyÅsei shoshi, or administrative scriveners, are responsible for preparing filings with government agencies and may even provide legal advice to clients in the preparation of such documents. Like other legal professionals in Japan, they must be registered to practice and are subject to professional oversight.

Brainstorming New Kinds of Legal Professionals

The above examples make it clear that the proposition that lawyers have a monopoly on providing legal services is at most a myth. There are already a diverse number of professionals providing legal interpretation, advice, and representation to clients. In jurisdictions such as Japan, these service providers are considered part of the formal legal system. In Canada, we have chosen to maintain the myth that lawyers are the exclusive providers of legal services. This attitude has two significant consequences. First, it creates barriers to entry into the legal services market. Second, it means that non-lawyers who do provide legal services are not subject to the kind of oversight, regulation, and educational pre-requisites that would be possible by bringing them under the auspices of the formal legal system.

In terms of the challenge of increasing access to legal services, fragmenting the legal services sector has a number of advantages over the strategy of simply increasing the number of practising lawyers. First, lawyers’ training is extremely expensive from the government’s perspective (as noted in Part 1), which in turn limits the capacity of the government to actually increase the supply of lawyers. In contrast, creating new professions with limited areas of competence saves the government money insofar as the educational requirements are more focused and specialized (unlike a lawyer’s training, which typically requires at least seven years of university). Second, non-lawyer legal professionals will presumably require less remuneration than lawyers, meaning that legal aid dollars can be stretched further to hire more people. Third, since lawyers’ fees are cost-prohibitive for the middle class, new service providers would enable the middle class to access a greater range of legal services than are currently available to them (as discussed in Part 1, those in the middle class often make too much to qualify for legal aid, but not enough to actually hire a lawyer). Finally, by pretending that lawyers are the exclusive providers of legal services, we are failing to bring professional oversight to bear on many existing legal service providers. By recognizing and formalizing new kinds of legal professionals, we could ensure high quality of service through professional oversight bodies.

What I envision are a multitude of new legal service professions, the practitioners of which are authorized to provide legal advice or representation within a clearly-defined area of competence. Each new profession would have educational pre-requisites, a registration process, a code of professional conduct, and oversight by a professional disciplinary committee. Some of these professions might work under the supervision of lawyers, while others might be authorized to work independently.

The possibilities are endless and while it is not my intention to provide a comprehensive set of possible new legal professionals, I would like to proffer a few suggestions where I believe that the need is most critical.

Criminal Defence Advocates

I will begin with the problem that gave rise to the entire discussion: the capacity of legal aid to provide services to criminal defendants. As indicated earlier, the existence of student legal aid lawyers implies that obtaining a law degree, articling, and being called to the bar are not necessary in order to provide criminal defence services, at least for relatively minor charges. We can drastically increase the capacity of legal aid by creating a new category of specially-trained criminal defence advocates. These new professionals could handle routine matters such as remands and dispositions, as well as handling entire trials for minor charges. Rather than spending seven years in university mostly studying content that is not germane to the practice of criminal law, they could pursue a shorter course of study that emphasizes criminal law, rules of evidence, procedure, and constitutional principles. These criminal defence advocates would work under the supervision of lawyers, either for legal aid or in private firms.

Social Benefits Advocates

As noted earlier in this post, the emergence of the welfare state brought with it a need for legal services related to understanding and accessing government benefits such social assistance, disability benefits, workers compensation, etc. This need is not being adequately met by lawyers, in part because prospective clients are typically lower income people. By creating formal qualifications, we can establish a new category of social benefits advocates who are empowered to give advice and represent clients who are attempting to access certain social benefits. These professionals could supplement the work of poverty law centres as well as serving middle class people in private practice.

Judicial Scriveners

As the Japense shihÅ shoshi demonstrate, there is room for non-lawyers to perform services in relation to real estate, corporate transactions, and related matters. There is a significant demand for legal advice and document drafting in these areas, yet the services of a lawyer are often cost-prohibitive for small businesses and middle-income individuals. Formalizing a new kind of legal professional to provide these sorts of services would not only promote access to new legal services, but could reduce the future volume of litigation down the road. I envision these sorts of professionals working in full-service firms that include lawyers, accountants, and others who would provide an extensive range of services primarily to small business clients.

Wills & Estates Professionals

Every year, a large number of Canadians die intestate, in part because lawyers’ services are cost-prohibitive to middle class individuals. It is notable that most Canadian law schools do not prescribe a required course in will and succession, implying that completing law school is neither necessary nor sufficient to enable a person to provide advice in relation to estate planning. Someone with specialized training in succession, property law, trusts, and related areas may indeed be better placed than most lawyers serve clients’ estate planning needs. Increasing access to these services would have the effect of reducing the number of people who die intestate each year, while also potentially reducing the future volume of litigation.

Domestic Violence Certificates

Partner abuse and child abuse are the most pervasive forms of illegal violence in Canada. Creating a qualification that allows social workers or employees of women’s shelters to assist women in obtaining prevention or protection orders would provide a tremendous resource to a lot of people living in very precarious situations. Moreover, this is a fairly narrow area of the law that can be taught very quickly.

Possible Objections

I foresee two central objections that might be raised against the proposals in this series. Specifically:

that ending the lawyers’ monopoly on legal services will lead to a decrease in the quality of service; and,
that introducing greater competition in the legal services sector will lead to a decrease in lawyers’ remuneration.

In relation to the first objection, I raise two counter-arguments. First, as I have taken pains to emphasize in this series of articles, I envision these new legal professions as being subject to the same kind of professional oversight as nurses and lawyers. Specifically, there would be a clear delineation of the areas of competence of non-lawyers, coupled with educational pre-requisites and disciplinary oversight commensurate to the responsibility. All legal service providers would be subject to a code of professional conduct and oversight from a governing college or society. It might even be appropriate to include provisions in the empowering legislation that requires a quota of lawyers to serve on the boards that govern the colleges or societies. Second, since these new job categories are designed to meet needs not currently being served by lawyers, it can be argued that the level of service provided by a non-lawyer is preferable to a complete lack of service in the status quo.

In relation to the second objection, I again have two counter-arguments. First, a decrease in lawyers’ remuneration might not be such a terrible thing, and competition may very well prove to be a positive force in the legal services sector. Besides, as professionals we are ethically bound to put the public interest before our personal interests: if ensuring that the public has adequate access to legal services means taking a pay cut, we are ethically obliged to take a pay cut. Having said that, my second counter-argument is that I don’t think that my proposals would decrease lawyers’ remuneration anyway. Again, remember that these new professions are practising in areas that are currently under-served, and serving clients who cannot afford a lawyer under the current system. The new professionals would not be â€œstealing businessâ€ from lawyers because they will be serving clients who do not, at present, constitute a lawyer’s business. In fact, having a greater number of service providers could lead to an increase in business for lawyers insofar as non-lawyers will have to refer clients to a lawyer in cases where the client’s legal issue falls outside the non-lawyer’s area of competence, much like the medical services model. Finally, a significant number of these non-lawyers could be hired by private law firms in order to expand their business into new areas (albeit, areas that return a lower fee than those covered by lawyers). Since the partners are taking a cut off the top of all of the fees coming in to the firm, this would be a low-cost way for firms to increase their legal business.

Moving Forward

I have argued in this series that the time has come for lawyers to reject their professional monopoly on providing legal services, following the model of the health services sector. By creating new kinds of legal professions with circumscribed areas of competence and professional oversight commensurate to their areas of responsibility, we can drastically increase the public’s access to legal services without compromising on the quality of service. This has immensely positive benefits, especially for low- and middle-income persons who cannot afford legal services in the current legal market.

There are two major pragmatic barriers facing such a project. First, there will be costs associated with training new professionals that must be borne by the state. However, as I have argued, the cost of my proposal is relatively small compared to the cost of training enough new lawyers to meet the public’s demand for service. This is because non-lawyers would be able to specialize their training in a particular area and, therefore, might not require seven years of university education (as is the norm for lawyers). As the crisis in access to service worsens, governments will be forced to address the situation in one way or another. I would argue that my proposal provides a more cost-effective way to do so than simply increasing the number of law school graduates.

The second major barrier is the legal profession itself. For centuries, lawyers have closely guarded their role as the exclusive providers of legal services. Driven in part by a concern to ensure a high quality of service, and in part by a desire to corner the market, lawyers have gone to significant lengths to prevent any movement in the direction that I am proposing. However, there is reason to be optimistic about the future.

As I have argued, non-lawyers are already providing legal services in a number of different areas. This trend has enough momentum that I don’t believe it can be stopped at this point. Moreover, the drastic inadequacy of lawyers to meet the public’s demand for service is becoming more and more apparent every day. Eventually, law societies and provincial legislatures will need to address this crisis with decisive action. Lawyers have a leading role to play in this discussion. Remembering the ethical duty we owe to the public, progressive lawyers should push their bar associations and law societies to critically re-examine the necessity of maintaining a monopoly on legal services.