The Empowered Paralegal

As I’ve often noted issues facing the attorney and paralegal professions in other countries are both different and the same as ours. Take Great Britain for example. The system for becoming and being a lawyer in Great Britain is quite different than ours, and lawyers themselves are divided between barristers and solicitors. However, there as in most other jurisdictions there is a tension between the goals of providing affordable legal services to the public and protecting the public from incompetent service providers. There, though, the public can choose their representation to a larger degree than here where only the licensed attorney can practice law. As noted in a post today on guardian.co.uk, “Anyone can launch themselves as a legal adviser, but solicitors have a unique selling point, they are qualified.”

There are a lot of “legal advisers” in England. As the author of the post, Neil Rose, points out, “After a 50% growth each decade over the past 50 years, there are now nearly 150,000 people on the roll of solicitors (plus another 45,000 in the various other legal professions), making England and Wales one of the most densely “lawyered” countries in the world. In another 50 years, on current trends, there will be a million solicitors.”

But the question he raises is, “For what do we need qualified lawyers? Why not just go to Penny the Paralegal with a clever PC (who may be a law student who couldn’t find a training contract)?”

Here, of course, this question could not arise since Penny the Paralegal is prevented from performing most lawyer-like activities by UPL statutes. This is true only to a very limited extent in England where, “By law, there are six areas of work – known as reserved legal activities – for which you need a legal qualification: preparing litigation; representing someone in court; transferring land; certain limited aspects of probate; notarial activities; and the administration of oaths. That’s it.”

Here’s the rub – a rub we saw in Canada and, to a degree, here -especially in Wisconsin: “The argument that more legal activities, such as will-writing and employment advice, should be reserved may seem like a job creation exercise by the legal profession, …” In other words, who are UPL laws meant to protect – the public or the legal profession.

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Way back in 1984 the Mississippi Bar Association issued an ethics opinion that concluded it is not proper for an attorney to allow a disbarred or suspended attorney to work as a paralegal or legal assistant in the attorney’s law office. OPINION NO. 96 OF THE MISSISSIPPI STATE BAR, RENDERED JUNE 7, 1984. The opinion rested primarily on UPL considerations:

In the recent case of In re Frank John Kuta, Attorney, Petitioner, 427 NE2d 136 (1981), the Supreme Court of Illinois held as follows:

Without a doubt, a disbarred or suspended attorney should not serve as a law clerk or a paralegal during his disbarment or suspension. The line of demarcation between the work that a paralegal or a law clerk may do and those functions that can only be performed by an attorney is not always clear and distinct. The opportunity for a disbarred or suspended attorney who is serving as a paralegal or a law clerk to violate that line of demarcation is too great and too inviting. Also, the public is not aware of the differences between the work of a paralegal and that of an attorney. For a disbarred attorney to be seen performing what the public may perceive as legal functions can only lessen the public’s regard for the effectiveness of our attempt to discipline errant attorneys, and would foment the belief that the public was not being protected from unethical attorneys.

A synopsis of unpublished Informal Opinion 7 (found at page 134 of the American Bar Association Opinions on Professional Ethics, 1967 edition) indicates that the American Bar Association Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility previously has given this advice:

An attorney should not employ a disbarred lawyer, even to do only office work and seeing no clients, because of the practical difficulty of confining his activities to an area which does not include practice of law, and because such employment would show disrespect to the courts.

Recent reports from Texas give another reason:

Disbarred S.A. lawyer sentenced for stealing thousands from indigent veterans fund
by KENS 5 Staff

kens5.com

Posted on July 17, 2010 at 5:46 PM

A former San Antonio lawyer, who was found guilty of defrauding the VA, will be spending the next four and a half years in prison.

On Friday, a judge sentenced Leo Alvarado to 54 months in prison for stealing $134,000. The money was supposed to go to the legal needs of indigent veterans.

Alvarado, a disbarred lawyer and former paralegal with the Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid,  reportedly submitted over 500 fraudulent vouchers for trips from San Antonio to Big Spring, San Angelo, Midland, Waco and other Texas cities between November 2003 and February 2006.

The trips were supposed to have been made to help indigent veterans and widows in filing claims with the Veterans Administration. Alvarado was in a position to approve his own travel. But investigators say he used invalid Social Security numbers , Social Security numbers of dead people, or numbers that belonged to different people.

They say sometimes Alvarado just made up clients so that he could be reimbursed fictitious travel expenses.

The VA says they have no record of Alvarado every assisting any veteran or widow.

Instead Alvarado pocketed the money.

None of the reports I’ve read state why Alvarado was disbarred. The State Bar of Texas website lists him as “Not eligible to practice in Texas,” but only reports the specifics on disbarment for ten years.

This poses a number of issues for the paralegal profession. First, the definition of paralegal is supposed to include attorney supervision, but the Legal Aid group apparently made him a “team leader” without supervision. So why is he called a paralegal?

Most attorneys are simply not trained or experienced in paralegal skills to actually do a paralegal’s job well. So what was the skill set required for this person as “team leader.” Is this really a paralegal position? If not, why call him a paralegal? If so, why not hire a real paralegal?

In general, why taint the paralegal profession with the stain of a person the lawyer profession found unsuitable? As the title of this post says, “If he smell bad there, he’ll smell bad here.”

Of course, these issues are just particular instances of the issues that arise when there is no firm definition of paralegal exists, when there is no “good character” requirement to become a paralegal, when there is no way to say when a person has the skill set required to be a paralegal, etc.

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The Seattle Timesreports on an owner of a “paralegal firm” charged with unauthorized practice of law. The story describes complaints brought against the owner and the owner’s interesting responses to the charges. Overall, though, the story is quite similar to others describing the ongoing conflict between “independent” paralegals and those seeking to penalize UPL.

Of more interest to me than the details of this particular conflict was the story’s reference to “The state Practice of Law Board …created by the state Supreme Court in 2001 to enforce rules prohibiting individuals and organizations from engaging in unauthorized legal and law-related services, as well as to promote affordable and reliable legal services.” At least the Supreme Court recognized the need to balance access to justice concerns with UPL concerns (whether those concerns rests in protecting the public or the bar. ) However, it set me to wondering what the Board had done on the second aspect of its duties: promoting affordable and reliable legal services.

Looking at the Board’s website, it does appear that the Board’s focus is on the UPL aspect of its duties rather than the access to justice aspect. It’s home page recites that the Board is required to:

* promote expanded access to affordable and reliable legal and law-related services;
* expand public confidence in the administration of justice;
* make recommendations regarding the circumstances under which nonlawyers may be involved in the delivery of certain types of legal and law-related services;
* enforce rules prohibiting individuals and organizations from engaging in unauthorized legal and law-related services that post a threat to the general public;
* ensure that those engaged in the delivery of legal services in the state of Washington have the requisite skill and competencies necessary to serve the public.

The Board has found over 40 instances of UPL in its history. While  it has apparently taken only one step on the access to justice side, that step appears to be a major one:

The Board also works on developing a pilot project of its proposed Legal Technician Rule. This rule allows trained, tested and licensed non-lawyers to provide specifically defined legal services without supervision by a lawyer.

The website provides additional information regarding the Legal Technician Rule:

[T]he Board has developed a  proposed APR creating Legal Technicians.  Legal Technicians are envisioned to be educated, tested and certified nonlawyers authorized to provide limited legal services in specific areas.  The proposed APR creates a commission to assist in regulating the legal technicians.  Here are the proposed regulations rules for that commission. The Board wrote an article explaining the vision for legal technicians.  The POL Board asked for input from invited guests during its April, May, and July 2006 meetings.  During the October 2006 retreat, the Board set up four sub-committees.  These sub-committees will investigate the feasibility of a legal technician pilot project in four areas of substantive law.  The four sub-committees are: family law, immigration law, elder law and housing law.

Here’s the general statement of what the Elder Law Subcommittee has decided:

The Elder Law Sub Committee of the Practice of Law Board recommends that legal
technicians be authorized to perform certain basic legal tasks in the following areas, when a
matter is uncontested: guardianship law, basic estate planning, probate law, and vulnerable
adult proceedings. These areas were identified by the Sub Committee because the legal
community has already developed model forms to perform many of the basic legal tasks in
these areas. More complex or contested elder law issues do not lend themselves well to a
form based practice and, therefore, should be handled by licensed attorneys.
Those model forms are used currently by pro se litigants with little or no instruction from
attorneys; sometimes with success and sometimes with unexpected results. The frequency of
unexpected outcomes can be reduced with improved access to legal professionals with elder
law training.

However, in 2008 the Board proposed a rule that applied only to Family Law.  Later in 2008 the State Bar Association Access to Justice Committee asked the Supreme Court to form a task force to implement the rule noting:

The proposed Rule, with its advice and advocacy enhancements, is intended to increase access to justice. With the availability of more advocates, more people will have access to legal assistance for their family law matters. The Rule is intended to open up the availability of limited legal services to those who fall into the populations noted above. The Rule is very technical and is probably not well understood within the legal community. It is not perfect, but seldom is any law or rule. If, after implementation, it is determined that the Rule isn’t working, it can be modified or repealed. For now, the Rule is a step in the right direction and merits the support of the ATJ Board.
We understand many interested parties oppose the Rule. However, this important issue has been ignored for far too long and the ATJ Board must exercise creative leadership on this matter consistent with the ATJ Board’s mission.

There is no information on the site as to what has happened since with regard to this Rule or the pilot project. If any of you know the present status of this adventure, I’d be pleased to hear from you.

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I do not yet have enough information to pick sides in this controversy, but it is one of interest to the paralegal profession. Jerry O’Neil is an “independent” paralegal in Montana. Unfortunately none of the stories I’ve read so far state what his credentials are for claiming to be a paralegal, much less an “independent” one. As previously discussed in this blog, there technically can be no such thing as an independent paralegal since every generally accepted definition of paralegal in the United States requires that the paralegal be supervised by an attorney. That technicality aside, it would be good to know O’Neil’s qualification to call himself a paralegal, supervised or not supervised.

That is not, however, what brings Mr. O’Neil’s story to this blog today. Rather it is the fact that the Montana Attorney General’s Office has withdrawn a complaint against O’Neil that argued phone book advertising by paralegal Jerry O’Neil of Columbia Falls deceived people about his practice. The ad was in the lawyers section of the Yellow Pages identify him as an independent paralegal providing low cost divorce services. He was charged with deceiving people under the state’s Unfair Trade and Consumer Protection Act. The problem is that the state could not identify anyone who had been deceived. District Judge Jeffrey Sherlock of Helena denied a state request for summary judgment in April. The judge gave the state until May 24 to respond to O’Neil’s request to identify someone who claimed to have been deceived by his advertising. The state did not respond and instead an assistant attorney general signed an agreement dismissing the case.

This, it appears, is not O’Neil’s first confrontation with the Montana legal system over his independent paralegal practice. The Billings Gazetteadds this information:

O’Neil has tangled with the state and the commission over his status as an “independent paralegal” for years.

In 2006, the commission pursued litigation that resulted in District Judge Kim Christopher of Polson affirming an injunction that prohibited O’Neil from practicing law or advertising that he is capable of doing so.

O’Neil said that injunction said he can act as a lay representative if authorized by administrative agencies or tribunals, can serve as an arbitrator or mediator, can act as a lobbyist or legislator and can fill in preprinted documents, such as wills. An attorney has to review some documents he prepares.

O’Neil said most of his business involves offering mediation for divorcing parties to help them divide their property and share custody of their children.

The Montana Supreme Court ruled last month that neither the court nor the commission it created had the authority to regulate the unauthorized practice of law, but that the Legislature has charged the executive branch with investigating and prosecuting such cases. That ruling came after the commission filed a petition seeking more than the $1,000 annual budget it had. The commission said the sparse funding meant only one case had been prosecuted since the commission started in 1976 — O’Neil’s.

The state attorney general’s Office for Consumer Protection agreed to take on the duties of the commission.

O’Neil’s spin on all this is not as a matter of protecting the right to practice as an independent paralegal, UPL, or the like. Rather, in his own press release he says it is an access to justice issue:

O’Neil is also asking the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to increase the allowable scope of para-professionals’ abilities to help the public access their judicial system. Defendants in that case are the Montana State Bar Association and the Montana Supreme Court Commission on Unauthorized Practice, which the Montana Supreme Court recently found to be operating outside of their Constitutional jurisdiction.
O’Neil says, “This win, along with the Montana Supreme Court disbanding their Commission on Unauthorized Practice of Law, will make it easier for people of modest means to receive legal services. I am proud and grateful to have made a contribution to the public’s access to their judicial system.”

The issues of UPL, independent paralegals, access to justice, and licensing/registration are intertwined. It is clear that paralegals (supervised or independent) can do much to solve access to justice issues. The downside is that absent licensing mandates, anyone can call themselves a paralegal. The deception, if there is any, may be in implying that one has skills, experience, or education that one does not have.

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Today Linkedin news roundup for KNOW: The Magazine for Paralegals has this announcement from Nicole Turturro, RP: 

Legislation is on a fast track in the State of New Jersey Assembly would increase the level of criminality of practicing law without a license in New Jersey and create a civil cause of action for victimized clients. The bill, A-1050, backed by the State Bar Association and with no vocal opponents, would upgrade the unauthorized practice of law to a third-degree crime, punishable by a prison term of between three and five years and a $15,000 fine.

The Assembly Judiciary Committee voted 6-0 on March 8th to recommend passage of the bill, aimed largely at notaries public that offer legal services to Hispanic immigrants. In some Latin American and Caribbean countries, the term “notario” or “notario publico” signifies an attorney.

The civil-action provision would allow a court to award damages in an amount of $1,000 or three times the value of all costs incurred by the victim as a result of the criminal activity, whichever is greater, along with counsel fees and costs.

While the law may be designed to deal with the notario problem, Nicole correctly brings it to our attention because of its implications for “independent” paralegals and for paralegals who are attorney supervised but cross the UPL line. I have not checked out the pending legislation, but I suspect it does not excempt any paralegals if they do cross that line.

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John Stossel of Fox News says his show tonight will include “interview David Price, a Kansas City paralegal who went to jail for half a year because he helped 86- year old Eldon Ray write a letter defending himself against the charge of “unlicensed practice of architecture.”  I’ve never seen John’s show and, if the contect of the show is as misleading as the announcement, I suspect it is just as well. I’ve reviewed a number of news reports on Mr. Price’s situation. Perhaps the most comprehensive and clearest is here.

There are a lot of problems with John’s characterization of David Price, what Price did, and why his was in jail, but my chief concern here is that Price is characterized as a paralegal. It does not appear that Price has any education or training that would justify that designation.  He also has little experience other than having “challenged dozens of judges, attorneys and court officials in the Kansas justice system with a variety of lawsuits found to be frivolous by the state and federal courts.”

The story linked above states, ”

However, it becomes clear through his own admission that his personal battle with the legal system is deeply rooted in a domestic relations case that went awry. Court files indicate Price filed legal motions for four years to stop the adoption of his biological child after the court severed his parental rights in 2001 and allowed the mother of the child and her husband to voluntarily put the child up for adoption.

Price said the experience spurred his interest in the law, his distrust for the system and the desire to advise others.”

If the news reports are correct, while the experience spurred his interest in the law, it apparently did not spur any interest in obtaining education or training in the law before starting to give advice. Stossel appears to argue that there should be no government licensing of anyone. In essence any one should be able to say they are a paralegal, a lawyer, a doctor, or a pilot, regardless of their knowledge, training, education, or experience. Apparently he’d just let the free market decide whether they survive competing against those that have actual knowledge of the topic.

In my last post I suggested that UPL laws that restrict legal services solely to attorneys were not the best way to deal with the difficulties that arise when people go to non-lawyers for assistance because they cannot afford an attorney. Kansas acknowledges this problem. The story linked above includes this:

While nonlawyers aren’t permitted to advise pro se litigants, a committee established by the Kansas Supreme Court found a growing number of people need help in the court system.

Valdez, who serves as a member of the Kansas Supreme Court’s Pro Se Committee, said public education through town meetings and allowing limited scope assistance from attorneys may help.

“The pro se litigant issue isn’t going to go away,” Valdez said. “You’ll always have people who can’t afford lawyers. Going into it, you want to make sure they have enough knowledge.”

However, the way advocated by Stossell and Price is also not a viable solution. At the very least the government ought to require disclosure of creditials to consumers in a clear, prominent way. However, the public would be best served if there were standards in place that has to be met before someone is allowed to call themselves a paralegal. Mr. Stossel, David Price is not a paralegal.

 All that being said, the legal community must give much more thought to utilization of people who meet that standard to solve access to justice problems, including the possibility of allowing well qualified and regulated professionals to perform some basic legal services without the supervision of an attorney.  It should be noted here that our conception of paralegal varies significantly from the conception of paralegals in many, many other countries. Vivek Mairu, in a well crafted essay appearing in THE YALE JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW [Vol. 31: 427] proposes a full definition, but starts with a statement that does appear to catch that conception, “In bare terms, paralegals who provide justice services are laypeople with basic training in law and formal government who assist poor and otherwise disempowered communities to remedy breaches of fundamental rights and freedoms.”

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As discussed in previous posts UPL laws and regulations of legal professionals exist amid tension between the need to provide  the public with access to justice and the need to protect to protect the public from snake-oil salesmen posing as legal professionals. One of my students pointed out today that the State of Wisconsin is currently attempting to define UPL for the first time.  A series of posts on the State Bar of Wisconsin’s website discuss the bar’s attempt to get the Supreme Court to adopt a set of rules in this regard:

A 2005 memorandum of law prepared for the UPL Policy Committee noted that past decisions of the Wisconsin Supreme Court affirm that it has the exclusive jurisdiction to define and regulate the practice of law in Wisconsin, including the power to prevent the unauthorized practice of law by both lawyers and laypersons:

“ . . . the regulation of the practice of law is a judicial power and is vested exclusively in the Supreme Court . . . the practitioner in or out of court, licensed lawyer or layman, is subject to such regulation . . . the court has the power to make appropriate regulations concerning the practice of law in the interest of the administration of justice . . . “ State ex rel. Reynolds v. Dinger, 14 Wis.2d 193 (1961).

According to the memorandum, the Wisconsin Supreme Court has never exercised its power to establish a definition of the practice of law that would be the vehicle with which consumers could be protected. The State Bar’s petitions asked the court to establish such a definition.

The Bar casts this as totally a matter of consumer protection:

The State Bar’s initiative, called the Legal Services Consumer Protection Act, responds to a directive issued by the court in 2004 asking the State Bar to document the consumer impact of unqualified individuals practicing law and to recommend changes. Wisconsin residents seeking legal services will gain additional consumer safeguards against individuals and businesses engaging in UPL if the court approves the petition.

The original State Bar petition offered dozens of examples where Wisconsin consumers have been hurt when people without proper training or oversight attempt to practice law. In February 2009, based on feedback from other interested parties, the State Bar filed an amended version of the rule and supporting comments.

Others would argue that this is really an attempt to maintain the monopoly the bar has on providing legal service, i.e., it is a move to eliminate all competition so they can maintain high prices.

I have not yet read everything posted in the weekly series on the Bar association’s website, but what I have read does not deal at all with the access to justice issue. Apparently there is some demand in Wisconsin for such access, which demand is not being met my the present legal system – else there would not be so many examples of consumers seeking the help of “independent” paralegals. 

While the set of rules proposed by the Wisconsin State Bar would indeed add safeguards for the consumer, those rules do not seem to address the access to justice issue at all. I am sure that the Winconsin Bar supports a pro bono program and ethical obligation for attorneys, but such programs simply cannot address the issue. The result appears to be that consumers are left either with legal services provided by attorneys or no legal services at all. There is no middle ground for those who need legal services, but cannot afford an attorney. One question is whether the answer to this problem is a regulatory system such as that adopted by Ontario, Canada. Perhaps the Wisconsin State Bar has another answer. If anyone reading this is aware of that answer, please let me know.

It would seem that there would be support for a regulated paralegal profession among both the political left and the political right. For the left it is a social issue – a matter of equity in that only those with significant financial resources can afford legal access. For the right it is a free-market issue – assuming proper disclosure ought not consumers be able to decide from whom they wish to obtain services, as the do in England.  (Many of the attorneys with whom I have discussed these issues are in favor of protecting consumers of legal services while at the same time arguing in favor of unregulated free markets for businesses, for financial services, and the like.)

As noted in previous posts, I do not favor unregulated snake-oils salesman practicing law – as attorneys or as paralegals. However, it does seem clear we must do more to allow if not provide access to legal services than we do now. A well educated, well trained, well regulated paralegal profession may just be the answer.

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One of the coincidences abounding in the blogosphere is that just as first Melissa H. at Paralegalese and Lynne DeVenny at Pratical Paralegalism posted regarding the case of “independent” paralegal Jerry O’Neil in Montana who successfully defended a Montana AG’s Motion for Summary Judgment on the issues of violating that state’s Unfair Trade and Consumer Protection Act, Efrem Martin, about whom we have posted before, was informing me that he has informed the Colorado the Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel he was no longer a practicing paralegal.

Melissa and Lynne did fine jobs of covering the Montana matter, so I won’t be going into it. (Not everything on the internet about that story has been well done. Some commentators have, it seems to me, clearly misinterpreted both the meaning and the import of the case.)

I am a bit surprised at Efrem’s move. I have not yet had the time to read all of the documents he sent me regarding his case, so I am reserving comment and posting of excepts of his email for a few more days.  However, some of the communication he received from the Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel is interesting at least to the extent that it informs those considering or implementing “independent” paralegal practices. In the initial letter is here: EFREM MARTIN INITIAL REQUEST FOR UPL INVESTIGATION[1]
Efrem challenged the Colorado proceeding in Federal Court. The Federal Court remanded it back to Colorado. I’ll have more on the basis for the challenge and the court’s ruling later. A quick read does no seem to indicate the Federal Court’s decision was a ruling on the merits, but rather on the ability to challenge in Federal Court, at least at this stage. Regardless, Mr. Martin is now teaching high school and writing a book.

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Efrem Martin is an “independent” paralegal whose emails have engendered some discussion here (with a very good side dialogue through Melissa H. at Paralegalese of the role of “independent” paralegals in the U.S. Legal System. I use the “” marks on independent because the ABA/NALA definition of paralegal states that a paralegal must be supervised by an attorney. By that definition, there can be no “independent paralegals.” In the last installment Mr. Martin informed us of recent action taken by the Colorado Bar Association to charge him with UPL. As indicated in this morning’s email Mr. Martin has met fire with fire and filed a lawsuit against the ABA and CBA in Federal Court. I’m posting the email without further comment this morning because I have a class to teach shortly, but I hope to say more on this soon. In the meantime, here’s the email:

Hello Professor Mongue, this is the last email I will be sending you, just wanted to give you an update. I filed a Federal Lawsuit yesterday in Federal Court to challenge the Constitutionality of the UPL investigation of me and also to challenge the UPL Rules and Statutes here in Colorado as Unconstitutional, as they are applied to everyone. Now once again I do not care who you choose to share this email with. As I stated in my last email this is not about my business as a Independent Paralegal Services Provider, this is about my constitutional rights as a Pro Se Litigant. I am going to represent myself in court, I believe that this is in my best interest and the only way to expose the ABA and the Colorado Bar Association and the Office of Attorney Regulation who oversees attorneys in Colorado. I have received so much support from around the country from other paralegals and Pro Se Litigants that it really makes me proud to be in this profession.

I am not going to allow the Office of Attorney Regulation here in Colorado intimidate me or punk me and I am sure as hell am not going to allow them to coerce me into admitting that I have practiced law. 100% of the emails that I have received from paralegals around the country state that they truly hope that I am able to get the Federal Court to find UPL unconstitutional, because they fill the same way that I do and fill that it is time that someone challenge the ABA and all State Bar Association, because it is paralegals who do the work and attorneys get paid for the work. I am so humbled, I am blessed on so many levels and I continue to become more encouraged with the support that I am getting throughout the United States. Pro Se Litigants are saying that I am their voice for doing the right thing and that we Pro Se Litigants have constitutional rights to represent ourselves in court. If I were the ABA I would take notice of what is happening, because sooner or later they are going to have to be in court at the Federal Level to address UPL, they have gotten away with hiding and using their association to continue to take advantage of paralegals and their services for too long. I want to share an email with you that I received today verbatim.

“Hello Mr. Martin, I pray that all is well. I am a certified paralegal in Vermont and support you 150%, I am a white female in my 30′s and like you have had enough of the ABA, Vermont Bar Association and all paralegal associations that continue to pimp out paralegals like we are their property. The reason why paralegals are not regulated in the United States or in some states and not other states is simple, attorneys have a monopoly and will fight like hell to keep their monopoly, I see it everyday in my law firm. There is not another industry where a person has to be under the direction of anyone, only in the legal profession and since no one challenges this none sense the ABA and all the State Bar Associations continue to abuse and use it to their advantage. Paralegals don’t practice law, please we are trained to understand the difference between giving legal advice and answering questions. Just the other day I was put in the position to give legal advice because one of our partners was not able to make the meeting with our client so here I am again as usual telling our client what they have to do. I wonder if I am ever going to be charged with UPL, oh that can’t happen to me because I work under an attorney.

… [Edited for length by R. E. Mongue] I work for a law firm that would not even look your way, because you are a threat to their pockets and I can tell you that attorneys take care of their own, there are no ethical or moral boundaries when it comes to greed. It is a good thing that you filed a Federal Lawsuit because that is the only place where you can get justice. Mr. Martin never feel like you are alone, paralegals like myself are out there just like you are and trust me we are so grateful that you are going to take this for the team. I support you and pray that we get justice, all UPL Statutes need to be found unconstitutional and struck down in every state, you have been in this field far to long to be challenged and treated the way that you are being treated. Mr. Martin knowledge is power and they know that you have the knowledge and power to help people. Mrs. C

Professor these are the emails that I continue to receive daily so I know that I am doing what is right for all Pro Se Litigants. I have been asked over and over again do I worry about the ABA, Colorado State Bar Association and the Office Of Attorney Regulation in Colorado and what they can do to me. My answer is always the same, “FEAR CREATES PARANOIA” they pick the wrong Marine to mess with and they are about to see be very careful what you ask for, I fear God not men or women. So with that being said it has been a pleasure corresponding with you, I am sure that you will read about my case sometime in the future. I want to thank you for allowing me the opportunity on your forum it has been a good thing for me. Thank you Professor Mongue. Efrem B. Martin

Efrem B. Martin BA, Certified Paralegal & Owner
Martin Paralegal Services LLC
www.martinparalegalservices.com

I have notified Mr. Martin that future emails updating on the status of this lawsuit would be welcome.

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I have received some responses to my post of Efrem Martin’s email on the Colorado State Bar Association’s charge that he is engaged in UPL. Here is on from the perspective of pro se litigants.

There is some support for the position that paralegals ought to be able to assist the public without the supervision of attorneys in Canada and Great Britain. In Great Britain, for example, it appears paralegals have much greater leeway based on a common law right of British citizens to select there representatives. I have met with a paralegal who runs an independent office where he supervises other, less experienced and educated, paralegals.

Some Canadian provinces allow paralegal representation by licensed paralegals. It is on this point, perhaps, that the discussion should focus. Under our present system, attorneys are licensed and regulated to protect the public, but paralegals are not. The protection to the public comes from attorney supervision. If paralegals are allowed to operate without the supervision of attorneys for the benefit of the public, then must they be licensed and regulated for the protection of the public?

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