Projects

Unlocking Legal Regulation

Project Status: Evaluating Utah; Advising on AI; Building Momentum

Two men unlocking a door together.

This Unlocking Legal Regulation Knowledge Center is an up-to-date resource covering regulatory innovations, data, and impacts happening nationwide—and beyond.

Research on the Problem

Data & Evaluation

Regulatory Models

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IAALS recommends reviewing these resources first:

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  • Submit resources and comments to this knowledge center.
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Recent Regulation News

January 22, 2026
Florida’s Rule Is Subtly Pushing Back on Non-Lawyer Ownership
Bloomberg Law

December 14, 2025
Bridging the Justice Gap in Federal Administrative Proceedings
The Regulatory Review

November 14, 2025
Non-Attys Could Help Close Georgia's Civil Justice Gap
Law360

November 3, 2025
Law Firm Ownership Could Be Opened to Non-Lawyers in Tennessee
Bloomberg Law

Read more legal regulation news.

Research on the Problem

Data & Evaluation

Many—but not all—regulatory models explored in the knowledge center below have information about their data and evaluation.

Rigorous data collection and evaluation is critical to understanding whether a state is meeting its intended goals. Without it, proponents and opponents alike can only speculate about the effectiveness of implemented regulatory reforms. When states are having conversations around their intended goals for regulatory reform, they should also discuss how they will measure the success of the program. To learn more about how to embed data collection into your regulatory innovation initiative, read these considerations or get in touch.

IAALS' Utah Sandbox Evaluation

Utah’s regulatory sandbox is built largely on the model IAALS developed, and IAALS is acting as an independent third-party evaluator for the sandbox. We are conducting an interim evaluation, with reports published in 2025 and 2026.

Regulatory Models

These are currently the four most common regulatory reform models. It's important to note that these models overlap and intersect in various ways.

Regulatory Sandbox

Allied Legal Professionals

Alternative Business Structures

Community-Based Justice Worker Models

Regulatory Sandbox

A regulatory sandbox is a policy tool through which new models or services can be offered and tested to assess marketability and impact and inform future policymaking while maintaining consumer protection. It is risk-based regulation involving one or more regulatory models (e.g., ABSs, community-based models, etc.).

IAALS proposes a new system of regulation for legal service providers. The IAALS model of regulation envisions a non-profit, independent regulator of legal service providers implementing a risk-based approach to regulation that seeks to advance our regulatory objective: ensure consumers access to a well-developed, high-quality, innovative, and competitive market for legal services. Read more in our Independent Regulator of Legal Services Policy Outline.

Domestic

Utah

Indiana

Minnesota

Washington

Virginia

California

Florida

Virginia

Utah

Utah’s regulatory sandbox is built largely on the model IAALS developed and published in 2019. IAALS is acting as an independent third-party evaluator for the sandbox. Read more here.

International

Alberta, Canada

British Columbia, Canada

Ontario, Canada

Manitoba, Canada

Nova Scotia, Canada

Alberta

Ontario

Alternative Business Structures

An alternative business structure, or ABS, is a business entity that includes people who aren't lawyers who have an economic interest or decision-making authority in a firm and provides legal services in accordance with local Supreme Court and ethics rules. This regulatory model is often referred to as entity-based regulation. It targets people of all income levels and businesses and involves changing or eliminating Model Rule of Professional Conduct 5.4.

National Organizations Working in this Space

Domestic

Arizona

Washington, D.C.

Puerto Rico

Utah

  • See the information listed in the "Regulatory Sandbox" section above.

Tennessee

Texas

Arizona

Utah

  • Utah’s regulatory sandbox permits alternative business structures and the data associated with these entities is included in the monthly activity reports referenced above in the Regulatory Sandbox section.

In Auto Clubs and Lost Origins of the Access to Justice Crisis, the Deborah L. Rhode Center on the Legal Profession at Stanford studied the history of auto clubs in the United States, specifically in the 1920s and 1930s when they had in-house lawyers handling various legal matters for members. This article includes historical information and data that supports the idea that alternative business structures can deliver legal services to a wide range of legal consumers without causing harm.

International

Australia

Canada

England & Wales

New Zealand

Allied Legal Professionals

"Allied legal professionals" is the term IAALS uses to describe a tier of providers who are the nurse practitioners of the legal profession. They are trained and licensed to offer legal advice and services for certain case types. This can be a market-based model that targets middle and low-income individuals or a legal aid model and requires relaxation of/exemption or waiver of unauthorized practice of law (UPL) rules.

Domestic

See the IAALS Allied Legal Professionals Knowledge Center for the full landscape of programs in various stages throughout the country.

Allied legal professionals are not a new concept in the legal profession. Various types of authorized representatives have existed within federal administrative proceedings space for decades. Learn more in this 2024 report on Nonlawyer Assistance and Representation.

Arizona

Minnesota

Washington

International

British Columbia, Canada

  • Implemented through their innovation sandbox, see above

Ontario, Canada

Saskatchewan, Canada

Saskatchewan

Community-Based Justice Worker Models

Community-based justice worker models involve training and certifying individuals working on the frontlines at community-based or legal aid organizations to offer limited scope legal advice and services in certain case types. Think of community-based justice workers as the EMTs of the legal profession. These models target low-income individuals and require modification of/exemption from or waivers of UPL restrictions. Currently, existing projects like these are authorized through state supreme court Administrative Orders or the Utah Sandbox. Learn more about the diverse landscape of community-based justice worker models in this expert opinion and this webinar.

A similar but slightly different model in the community-based justice worker space is legal first aid—training existing client-facing staff in community nonprofits to identify unmet legal needs and legal causes and help clients access legal protections. Legal Link is a nonprofit organization that has created legal first aid programs in the San Francisco Bay Area, Oklahoma, and South Carolina. Because legal first aid does not involve giving legal advice or providing legal services, no unauthorized practice of law waivers or ethics rule changes are needed.

National Organizations Working in this Space

Alaska

Arizona

Delaware

Hawaii

Illinois

Montana

Utah (through its Sandbox)

California

Georgia

Michigan

Montana

Texas

Virginia

Washington, D.C.

Currently, much of the litigation in the regulatory reform space centers around whether the unauthorized practice of law statutes in various states, which prohibit people who are not lawyers from providing legal advice, violate the first amendment. In this short video, Paul Sherman from The Institute for Justice discusses the history of the professional speech doctrine; and in this short video, Paul discusses the line between speech by lawyers that is fully protected by the first amendment and what is not protected by the first amendment.

Alaska

  • Program Data (included in the public comments submitted by Frontline Justice to the Texas Access to Justice Commission)

Arizona

Utah

United Kingdom

Debunking Common Arguments Against Regulatory Reform