Coming to a firm near you!

With most practitioners focusing on the implications of the Legal Services Act 2007, little attention has been paid to a quiet revolution so profound that many solicitors’ firms may end up as quasi-alternative business structures.
For over a decade, firms have been employing paralegals in ever greater numbers.

They have also been delegating ever more complex, client-facing, work to paralegals. That fact is old news; what’s new is that we are approaching the point when paralegal fee-earners in firms may begin to outnumber solicitors—where solicitors become a minority in their own profession.

The growth in paralegal numbers (circa 65,000) is such that there are already more paralegal fee-earners than there are associate, assistant and consultant solicitors combined. If firms continue to choose paralegals over solicitors where possible (and they will—the economic advantages are compelling) then paralegals will outnumber solicitors in approximately seven years’ time.

If paralegals were just the junior support staff of old then the increase in numbers would be of little interest. But they’re not. They are doing work previously done by solicitors—and they are becoming autonomous, case-handling, client-facing fee-earners, not support staff.

Regulatory matters

The whole point of regulation is to ensure high standards of professionalism in those who provide legal services. Accordingly solicitors are expensively trained, arguably over-regulated, held to the highest account by the courts, often penalised by PI insurers, obliged to do continuous professional development and required to purchase ever more expensive practising certificates.

Yet working beside them, and often doing the same work, is a veritable shadow army of paralegals to whom none of the said impositions apply. Frankly it is a farce. The “justification” of close solicitor supervision is largely honoured in the breach.

At a conservative estimate, an additional 20,000 paralegals will be needed over the next decade. Where on earth are they all going to come from? Increased demand is due to the delegation of ever more complex work, so firms will also need better quality and better trained paralegals.

As paralegals become an ever larger component of the fee-earning “talent” then the way they are treated will have to change if firms want to attract, retain and motivate the best of them.

Obviously they will never be treated the same as solicitors because then there would be no point in having them, but career paths and attention to personal development and training are going to become the norm.

To match this need the institute has launched, with significant backing from the profession, the first national career path/route to qualification for paralegals (RTQ).

The RTQ consists of four career grades—linked to institute membership grades/professional designations and relevant National Competency Standards— Associate, Certified Paralegal and Qualified Paralegal.

Additionally, the RTQ: has been designed to benefit employers by tackling the above potential problems; leads to a professional designation (Qualified Paralegal) based upon proven, examined competency; is designed to be virtually cost free so as to be easily accessible to both firms and individual paralegals; and explicitly acknowledges and supports the position that paralegals are not solicitors, should not be equated with solicitors and that blurring of the distinction between paralegals and solicitors is to the detriment of both parties.

The “Paralegalisation” of the legal profession is already well under way. This is no invasion because it is something that solicitors are instigating and managing themselves, for their own benefit. The economic case is so compelling that it will continue. The implications are profound. The purpose of the RTQ is to help manage them in a way that works best for both solicitors and paralegals. 

James O’Connell, chief executive, Institute of Paralegals.
E-mail: joconnell@InstituteofParalegals.org

For more information on the RTQ visit the institute’s website at www.InstituteofParalegals.org. For more information on the free National Competency Standards available for paralegals, conveyancing paralegals, legal secretaries and legal assistants please visit www.LegalStandards.org

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