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  • Regulating Paralegal Services

    I saw an article in today's Toronto Star regarding the regulation of paralegals by the Law Society.

    Not sure how I feel about this one as I have been following this news story for the last couple of years. I have been troubled by how the paralegal industry has been presented as largely a liability risk for anyone needing to access legal services. That being said, our office in Calgary delivers paralegal services and I have been amused no end by the number of "messes" from practicing lawyers that we have had to clean up.

    Access to justice is not a guaranteed right in Canada. I am certainly in favour of regulating paralegals, but frankly, having the Law Society conduct the regulation is a lot like the fox guarding the hen-house. I liken this issue to the nature of the relationship between physicians and nurses over 50 years ago and in the here and now, we don't have doctor's regulating the nursing profession.

    Paralegals clearly dropped the ball on this as they should have sought to create a regulatory body a long time ago. (The neat thing about laws is that they can be changed of course and I hope that paralegals in Ontario challenge the legislation because in my view, it's clear cut protectionism for lawyers.)

    I often discuss the unauthorized practice of law with lawyers in Alberta and I ask them - what precisely IS the practice of law? Is it drafting of documents? is it the legal advice component? Is it acting as an agent for a litigant? The responses are all over the place. Some say that helping a client draft an Affidavit is practicing law, some say it isn't. And if only lawyers are allowed to practice law, then why is there an epidemic of self-represented litigants in Canada these days?

    It's definitely a quandry. Given that the divorce rate isn't exactly dropping and that the cost of accessing legal services is beyond the reach of many Canadians, I think that the law profession (lawyers specifically) can't have it both ways. Their not the villain in this, paralegals should have been acting to create a professional body a long time ago.

  • #2
    Hi Sean and welcome to the divorce forums! I'm honoured that you've joined and are actively participating.

    I was surprised to read in that article you cited that paralegals aren't allowed to handle divorces in Ontario. All you have to do is go to any search engine or yellow pages and you'll find many, many paralegals who offer these services.

    The fact is that paralegals are able to provide these services well. Often, lawyers need to rely on their assistants for details of the ins and outs of court procedures, as the lawyer's skills are more related to arguing in court, negotiating and drafting legal documents.

    As well, paralegals tend to provide the same services over and over on a much greater frequency than a lawyer would (many smaller clients versus the fewer large clients a lawyer has).

    And your contributions here show that paralegals know what they're doing :-)

    I think that the problem is that lawyers are an organized and powerful group whereas the paralegals have no such organization, influence or money. So, it's no surprise that the Law Society is managing to push this legislation through.

    I agree that it's somewhat perverse that an organization that has been openly hostile to paralegals for so long is going to be in charge of regulating paralegals.

    I also note that the Law Society is worried about harm to the public from the use of paralegals, yet offers no concrete evidence that this harm has occurred.

    I think that if this legislation passes, and it looks likely, it will be a sad day for access to Justice in Ontario.
    Ottawa Divorce

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