![]() ![]() The Bar utilized hundreds of hours of staff time and a substantial amount of State Bar resources. The State Bar used questionable methods for the Closing the Justice Gap Working Group as well as the Paraprofessional Program Working Group. Corporations are driven by profits and demands for returns to shareholders, and do not have the same ethical duties and are not subject to the same regulatory oversight as attorneys. Despite receiving hundreds of letters in opposition from legal aid groups, bar associations, and individual attorneys, the State Bar continued to march forward with its recommendations and largely dismissed serious substantive concerns as protectionist.Ĭorporate ownership of law firms and splitting legal fees with non-lawyers has been banned by common law and statute, due to grave concerns that it could undermine consumer protection by creating inherent conflicts of interests that fundamentally infringe on the duties attorneys owe to their clients. In September 2021, the paraprofessional working group released its report, recommending allowing non-lawyer paraprofessionals to practice law and split fees with attorneys. While a few bar organizations, including CAOC, were permitted to designate members of the working groups, those members were routinely outvoted in the stacked committees. This approach reflected a coordinated nationwide effort by a coterie of advocates, including in states such as Arizona which removed its rule barring fee-sharing between lawyers, and Utah, which also initiated a “sandbox” program regarding new legal ownership models. The State Bar appointed people to these groups, including several academics from out of state and even out of the country, who were already unbending advocates for their point of view. Unfortunately, both working groups were severely biased in their membership. That led to recommendations in 2020 to create two working groups: one to recommend parameters for a “regulatory sandbox” to permit the corporate practice of law, and the second to license unsupervised paraprofessionals. ![]() In 2018, the State Bar formed a task force to study regulatory changes, then commissioned a misleading study that was released in 2019. ![]() For the last four years, the State Bar has been taking increasingly aggressive steps to deregulate the practice of law under the guise of “closing the justice gap.” Specifically, their proposals would authorize unsupervised non-lawyer paraprofessionals to offer certain legal services and allow corporations to own law firms, share legal fees, and even directly practice law under some circumstances. The State Bar of California’s main mission is to license and discipline attorneys, so you may have been surprised to hear of their escalating efforts to open the door for corporations and paraprofessionals to practice law. ![]()
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