While over eighty percent of those who need legal help can be adequately
and economically served with the assistance of independent paralegals and
nonlawyers or by using self-help materials, the legal establishment has
created barriers to the full utilization of independent paralegals and
nonlawyer resources under the guise of protecting the public from the
"unauthorized practice of law." Today, state unauthorized practice
statutes, and the committees that enforce them, pose a great threat to the
availability of nonlawyer resources and self-help legal materials for the
tens of millions of Americans who need them the mostlow and moderate
income people.
Although the claimed rationale behind the unauthorized practice statutes
is to protect legal consumers, the statutes have been systematically
misused to target publishers of self-help materials, independent
paralegals, volunteer advocates and other nonlawyer resources. As a
result, access to accurate legal information and inexpensive alternatives
to traditional lawyer representation continues to erode.
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