Guest Posts

Colorado's Licensed Legal Paraprofessionals are poised to bridge the affordability gap and ease state court burdens, providing essential legal support to those who can't afford attorneys.

The community-based justice worker model is rapidly expanding within the civil justice ecosystem, showcasing diverse forms and significant impact. Here, we explore its evolution, approaches, and nationwide influence on improving access to justice.

Oregon has introduced a licensing system for legal professionals known as Licensed Paralegals to tackle the access to justice crisis. The Committee of Paralegal Assessors will review applications to ensure they meet the regulatory requirements for admission to the Oregon State Bar. 

IAALS’ JPE 2.0 project is investigating and responding to concerns about judicial performance evaluation—with a goal of renewing JPE as a valued and trusted process going forward. A foundational white paper from IAALS serves as a primer for these important developments.

The North Carolina Justice for All Project, created in 2020 to expand access to justice through regulatory reform, is a testament to the power of advocacy and the potential for individuals to drive change.

In Ontario, paralegals have established themselves to be competent legal service providers in many practice areas and are now entrenched in the legal services landscape. Here's what the United States can learn from our experience.

Allied legal professional programs have the potential to diversify the legal services market and create more cost-effective legal service models, and they should be created as an important part of a broader legal service ecosystem.

Special masters can provide adjunct services to free up time for judges and court administrators—which has become crucial in the wake of the pandemic. But most people have very little experience with special masters or understanding of what they do. Think “Swiss army knife.”

In October, the Indiana Supreme Court published the Family Law Taskforce's final recommendations on how to make courts more efficient, less expensive, and easier to navigate in family law matters, with an emphasis in problem-solving, triage, training and stakeholder partnerships, and technology.

Lawyer development is a single continuum that starts even before the first day of law school, and continues past the point when a lawyer has become an independent, confident, and proficient professional. Until we recognize this fact, we will continue to struggle to develop lawyers properly.