California Bar presses lawmakers to save legal innovation push

The California flag flies above City Hall in Santa Monica, California. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

(Reuters) – The State Bar of California is scrambling to save two projects aimed at lowering the cost of legal services that state lawmakers are trying to shut down.

Bar leaders have proposed a series of amendments to a funding bill that, if passed without the suggested changes, would halt the work of its committee exploring deregulation of some legal businesses and derail its proposal to establish so-called legal paraprofessionals—specially trained non-attorneys who could deliver limited legal services.

The California Senate’s judiciary committee on June 21 advanced a bill that would essentially eliminate both projects by severely constraining what they can do.

But scuttling the initiatives would exacerbate California’s access to justice problems, wrote California bar executive director Leah Wilson and board of trustees chairman Ruben Duran in a July 13 letter to State Senator Tom Umberg and State Assemblyman Mark Stone, who chair their respective judiciary committees.

A spokesman for Stone said Thursday that his office is reviewing the letter, adding that the current version of the bill is “intended to help the bar focus on its core regulatory responsibilities.” Umberg’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment Thursday.

Umberg and Stone have previously said that the state bar should focus its efforts on improving attorney discipline, which has come under public scrutiny over its handling of now-disbarred plaintiffs’ attorney Tom Girardi.

Bar leaders said in their letter that the organization can improve both its discipline system and access to justice.

They proposed clarifying in the bill that the bar’s so-called “regulatory sandbox” and paraprofessional programs would not be enacted without the approval of the California Supreme Court and the state legislature, and emphasizing that the regulatory reforms would be geared toward low-and-moderate-income Californians and small businesses.

The letter also proposed limiting the scope of the “regulatory sandbox” initiative by prohibiting legal entities from operating in the state if non-lawyers comprise the majority of their owners, and prohibit fee-sharing arrangements in which non-lawyers would receive a majority of the fees.

That compromise provision would stop more than 60% of the legal services entities now operating under “regulatory sandbox” programs in Utah and Arizona to come into California, said Jason Solomon, executive director of Stanford Law School’s Center on the Legal Profession.

“It’s giving up a tremendous amount in terms of the opportunity for more innovative, affordable services to be offered to people and businesses in California,” Solomon said.

Read more:

Legal innovation initiatives are on the chopping block in California

‘A very big deal.’ Nonlawyer licensing plan clears hurdle in California

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