Happy spring, everyone!

This is always an exciting time of year. Birds start chirping, flowers and plants start growing, and the environment starts to flourish once again. We’re also seeing this in the regulatory reform space. Allied legal professional and community-based legal advocate programs of all shapes and sizes continue to pop up around the country and the early results are encouraging. In our most recent Redesigning Legal Speaker Series webinar, we highlighted a few of these programs in Alaska, Arizona, and Utah.

But just as flowers and plants are part of a larger ecosystem, so are these programs. Allied legal professional programs where paraprofessionals work alongside lawyers to provide legal help and programs that upskill community-based advocates to offer legal advice to people when and where they need it are part of the greater delivery of legal help and regulatory innovation ecosystem, which also includes law firms, tech companies, and alternative business structures. While approaches for entities in each part of the ecosystem differ, the goal is the same—to get legal help to every person who needs it and who isn’t currently getting it from a lawyer, regardless of whether they are at a low or middle-income level.

Sometimes lawyers frame the access to justice issue as only applying to low-income people who qualify for free legal aid. But research shows that the access to justice problem extends well beyond the income eligibility line and includes middle-income folks as well. When we talk about the need for regulatory reform and innovation, it’s important to keep in mind that we need a wide range—i.e., ecosystem—of reform and solutions if we are even going to have a chance at solving our vast access to justice problem.
Jessica Bednarz
April 2023
March 29: "Paralegal Regulation in Ontario, Canada: A Northern Experience" on IAALS Blog

March 22
: "Legal Paraprofessional Summit Showcases Arizona’s Leadership and National Momentum" on IAALS Blog

March 15
: "Recap: SLR Panel: Regulatory Reform & Beyond" on SLS Blogs

March 9: "Independent regulation the key to a modern legal market" on Passmore Consulting

March 3: "Fictional ABA Techshow hearing tackles hot-button issue on amending rules of professional conduct" in the ABA Journal

February 17: "Stanford Law Review Symposium Focuses on Access to Justice" on SLS News and Announcements

February 15: "Allied Legal Professionals and the Legal Service Ecosystem" on IAALS Blog

February 14
: "Arizona and Utah Opened the Door, But Firms Remain Skeptical of Alternative Business Structures" in the American Lawyer

February 7: "Several IAALS Alumni and Friends Named 2023 Legal Rebels" on IAALS Blog

February 7
: "It’s Time for the ABA to Renew Its Role in Attorney Discipline" in Bloomberg Law

February 1: "2023 Legal Rebels: Charging Forward" in the ABA Journal

January/February 2023: "Is Model Rule 5.4 a Rule of Economic Constraint Whose Time of Benefit Has Ended?" in GPSolo
From the Sandbox
Some highlights from the latest activity report out of Utah's Office of Legal Services Innovation
  • 49 authorized entities 
    • 37 low innovation
    • 11 moderate innovation
    • 1 high innovation
  • 24,000 unduplicated clients
  • Varied types of services
    • 40.8% business (e.g., contracts, entity incorporation)
    • 21.3% military/veterans benefits
    • 13.1% immigration
    • 6.4% end-of-life planning
    • 5.7% accident/injury
    • 2.6% marriage/family
    • 10.1% other (e.g., real estate, housing, public benefits, criminal expungement, etc.)
  • 1 harm-related complaint for every 2,905 legal services delivered
Visit our Knowledge Center to track what's happening around the country and the world when it comes to legal regulation, as well as submit information and sign up for notifications.
IAALS is a national, independent research center dedicated to facilitating continuous improvement and advancing excellence in the American legal system. Our mission is to forge innovative and practical solutions to problems within the American legal system. 


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