Nowhere is the Law Society of B.C.’s failure to act in the public interest more evident than its more-than-a-decade-long procrastination to regulate and license paralegals.
This was not a unique or a radical development in a specialized profession — it’s no different than creating nurse practitioners to do some of the work only doctors were once authorized to do. After six years, the Law Society asked the province in 2014 to amend the law authorizing it to establish that paralegal designation and determine the services they could provide.As they say, I guess the wheels of justice turn slowly — although glacially would be more accurate.
That’s exactly what previous studies did — considered “the scope of services that would be appropriate for licensed paralegals to provide, and the education, qualifications, credentials and experience necessary for licensed paralegals to deliver legal services in a competent and ethical manner.”I think they will eventually get around to doing it — the Washington State bar was shamed into establishing “limited license legal technicians” in 2012.
Perhaps they even could be allowed to handle mediation, real estate transactions, employment disputes, debt squabbles, landlord-tenant conflicts, immigration issues, traffic and bylaw proceedings… It’s the same old whine to defend high legal fees and their monopoly on delivering legal services — save notaries, and some lawyers want to put them out of business, too.Yes, legal aid and services for the poor need to be expended, but there also needs to be affordable help for everyone else who can’t afford a lawyer forced to muddle their way through a legal system that remains archaic .
And yet lawyers employ paralegals to do the work they sign off on.
Paralegals & notaries should be fully equipped to fillthe voids. While we're at it, perhaps this exemption could be reversed, too -- at least in the interests of addressing money laundering.
It's effectively a union.