The Paralegal Committee’s goal this year was to provide a bridge between lawyers/judges and the paralegal community through input and interaction with professionals involved in training paralegals and other leading members of the Oklahoma paralegal community. This is the first full year that our committee name employed the word “paralegal” rather than “legal assistant” to bring our state in line with this major national trend.

An ongoing goal of the committee is to offer valuable information about paralegals through our OBA Web site. That service continued to be available throughout the year. We have decided that the most time-effective way to get members current information are through links to updated paralegal sites and will strive to add new links on an ongoing basis.

In the process of our efforts over the last few years, it became clear to us all that a standing OBA committee was an inadequate way to develop and maintain the needed bridge between lawyers and the paralegal community. In 2006 a task force was convened to study in detail the experience of five leading states that have created a “Paralegal Division.” The exact needs for a “division” approach were also studied and redefined from the efforts of previous years. After careful consultation with our able and active committee liaison, Governor Alan Souter, the decision was made to prepare a detailed report for review by our Board of Governors. After study and discussion, the Board of Governors on Sept. 15, 2006, endorsed the “division” concept as represented by the resolution.

Benefits to the OBA of the Paralegal Division:

*Target the unauthorized practice of law. The OBA can further lawyers’ interests by formally recognizing and affiliating with paralegals who support the OBA’s opposition to the unauthorized practice of law. Together we can better protect the public from individuals who are engaging in the unauthorized practice of law. For example, the OBA can assist the public by recognizing those paralegals that ethically perform their work under the supervision of a licensed attorney with division membership. Annual certification by the supervising attorney will be a requirement of division membership.

*Better train our paralegals. The OBA can fulfill a compelling need to provide consistent, high-quality, centrally planned CLE for Oklahoma’s paralegals who have become essential to the OBA’s members in the delivery of cost-effective and quality legal services to the public and private sectors. Formal interaction with institutions that train Oklahoma paralegals can give the OBA long-term influence over the quality and experience of program graduates.

*Better run law offices to better help clients. The OBA can promote teamwork and shared values between Oklahoma paralegals and attorneys thereby improving legal services to the public and office operations of lawyers.

*A hidden OBA resource. The Paralegal Division will provide a financial resource to the OBA through the collection of dues and through CLE enrollment for paralegals. It will provide the OBA a new body of dedicated and professional individuals that can help meet mutual goals.

Proposed Mission of a Paralegal Division:

To provide an established forum for paralegals to improve skills utilized by the legal team in the provision of legal services and to promote interaction among paralegals and between paralegals and lawyers to develop better ways to serve the needs of clients and the public.

Other Key States’ Experiences with their Paralegal Divisions:

The committee’s task force submitted detailed questions to bar association members in the five key states of Texas, Utah, New Mexico, Nevada and North Carolina concerning their experience with a paralegal division. Many other states have different kinds of affiliation with bar associations but our extensive 2004 survey garnering 208 responses from 275 inquiries suggested division membership would be widely accepted and sought by paralegals as opposed to other more loose affiliations. The five “division” states have had the best results. Below is a summary of responses from these states:

*Cost effective. The responses reported that the divisions are cost effective for the bar associations. Generally, the divisions have their own budget, supported by dues and CLE admission payments, and occasionally share costs with the bar association, for example, CLEs.

*No major discipline changes. Supervising lawyers are always responsible for the actions of their paralegals and are subject to discipline as a result of any misconduct by the paralegal whether a division or affiliation with the bar exists or not. No states reported changes in this area as a result of the creation of a division.

*Benefits to the public and practitioners. Those benefits of division membership include: improved access of cost-effective legal representation to the public; increased communication between lawyers and paralegals; credibility to those who are division members and the profession as a whole; opportunity for the legal profession to address any concerns that might surround the paralegal profession, i.e., the unauthorized practice of law; the ability to provide a uniform, state-wide policy on paralegals; providing affordable legal services and greater access to the legal system to the public; assuring paralegals can better assist through their participation in CLEs; volunteer and public service activities through committees; assistance to lawyers in pro bono matters.

The Future of the Division Concept

In 2006 a majority of the members of House of Delegates chose to support the creation of a Paralegal Division but because the creation of such a division would require a change to the by-laws of the OBA it failed for want of a two-thirds majority. The committee decided to devote this year to promoting better understanding among lawyers of its concept for a division and to be patient in promoting understanding of the initiative and to again press for a vote from the House of Delegates in 2008 instead of 2007.

Several questions posed by members can be addressed as follows.

Will this stop disbarred lawyers from being paralegals? No, but is should help reduce the problem. Based on the past directives of the Board of Governors and the input of General Counsel Dan Murdock, the committee anticipates that division membership will not be open to any paralegal who is a disbarred lawyer, whose license has been suspended, whose license has been surrendered or who is the subject of a pending disciplinary investigation. Unless an OBA member certifies each year that the paralegal is only performing services supervised by that lawyer, membership is not available. This should discourage the use of disbarred lawyers as paralegals but it will not stop that practice until the OBA someday develops a licensing program in cooperation with the paralegal community enforced by needed laws. We believe the division approach is a valuable first step toward meaningful regulation of paralegals.

Shouldn’t the OBA adopt and enforce strict standards for what it means to be a paralegal? Every state should and hopefully will eventually do so. However, state after state has struggled with implementing agreed mandatory standards. In Florida an appointed commission recently reported out a proposal for a type of voluntary regulation and creating a paralegal section of the Florida Bar. Paralegals who meet certain educational or (at the beginning) experience standards can chose to register with the section. This plan was both very similar to the North Carolina system which we studied as a committee and after which our division proposal is modeled. The Florida plan was approved by the Board of Governors and was the subject of oral argument before the Florida Supreme Court on April 16, 2007. During oral argument the bar made it clear that after careful study, it chose the incremental long term two step plan of first bringing the paralegals into the bar association on some basis before proceeding to the next logical step of mandatory regulation, Florida attorney and paralegal educator Susan Demers had this important observation following the commission hearing:

“Through the process, one thing did become clear to me. While the members of the Bar may disagree as to the role and duties of a paralegal, the word paralegal does have meaning to the general public and most would be shocked to find out that when their attorney sits them down with an employee whom that attorney calls a paralegal, that word has no legal standard attached to it.”

The OBA has a duty to the public to begin the journey toward responsible regulation of the role paralegals play in the provision of legal services. We believe that journey should start with creation of a paralegal division.

Joseph H. Bocock
Chairperson