A by Kevin Lee on August 31, 2021. On the proposed revisions to the Rules of Professional Responsibility for Lawyers

1. Sandboxes
and the Ecology
of Law

2. The Legal
Services
Corporation
Report (June
2017)
The Justice Gap: Measuring the
Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-
income Americans:
86 percent of the civil legal
problems faced by low-
income Americans annually
receive inadequate or no
legal help,

3. Cost is the
primary barrier

4. Too many Pro bono hours
needed to overcome the
barrier
To meet the current need, each lawyer would
need to log 200 pro bono hours annually.

5. ABA House of
Delegates’
Resolution 115
(February
2020)
The resolution encouraged
“U.S. jurisdictions to consider
regulatory innovations that
have the potential to improve
the accessibility, affordability
and quality of civil legal
services.”

6. Utah takes the
Lead
Utah Work Group on Regulatory Reform
issued an influential report that recognized
that the current system for legal education
and practice lacks the means to improve
the problem.

7. Utah takes the
Lead
“For over a century now, the entry point to
be allowed to provide legal services has
been territory controlled by law schools
molding Juris Doctors (JDs) and courts and
bar associations assessing the character and
fitness and broad legal knowledge of those
JDs.”

8. Utah takes the
Lead
“Oddly though, in most jurisdictions, once
admitted—and subject only to continuing legal
education and conduct requirements—an
attorney may provide any legal service across
the entire spectrum of needs, everything from
writing a will or closing a major contract to
defending a felony or filing a class action.

9. Utah takes the
Lead
“Technologies and market forces keep
undermining the fundamental premise that
lawyers, and lawyers alone, can provide suitable
legal services as consumers are increasingly
finding tools to meet their needs outside of the
regulated legal profession.

10. The Sandbox Approach
to Innovation
The Joint Technology Committee of the Conference of State Court
Administrators (CSCA), Fostering Innovation in Legal Services: Testing
Legal Regulatory Changes in a Protected ‘Sandbox,’
“An invitation to ‘play in the sandbox’ is ultimately an
invitation to collaborate, build something new, test it
out, and get a little sandy in the process.”

11. Proposal for NC
• Amendment to Gen. Assembly
Stat. 84-2.1b to create Sandbox
and limited licensing
• The study committee has passed
along its recommendation to the
State Bar Council for
consideration at the October
Meeting.

12. North Carolina
[i]n 2018, more than 2 million North Carolinians were
eligible for the services of legal aid providers.
Within this low-income population, 71% of families will
experience at least one civil legal problem in a given year.
Nevertheless, a staggering 86% of these legal needs will
go unmet because of limited resources for civil legal aid
providers.
There is only one legal aid attorney for every 8,000 North
Carolinians eligible for legal services, compared to one
private lawyer for every 367 North Carolina residents.”

13. Two approaches:
Sandboxes and
Limited License

14. Focus on
Rule 5.4
•What is the lawyer’s
work?

15. Sandboxes

16. Existing Sandboxes in the Works
Arizona – Dropped 5.4 all together
Utah (Formed in August 2020)
California (Report Sept. 2021)
Florida (Report June 2021)
Works in progress
Illinois
Connecticut
North Carolina

17. Sandboxes:
Following
Utah’s Lead
In March 2020, the Supreme
Court of Utah issued a Standing
Order:
Led to creation of the Office of
Legal Innovation Services, and
The Sandbox.

18. Utah’s
Sandbox
• Expanded fee sharing with
nonlawyers
• Legal practice entities can
be owned by lawyers and
nonlawyers jointly

19. Utah’s Sandbox Assessments
Participants must record and report data on various aspects of their
operation

20. Canadian
Experiences
• British Columbia – Sept. 2020:
Case-by-Case Assessment
resulting in No-Action Letters
• Ontario – 5 year sandbox.
Currently receiving first round
of applicants as of September
2021

21. Limited Licenses
And Expanded Roles for Paraprofessionals

22. • Licensing Programs in Place:
• ● Arizona
• ● Utah
• ● Washington LLLT - Sunsetting
but LPO still in place.
•
• License Programs in Progress:
• ● Arizona
• ● California
• ● Colorado
• ● Minnesota
• ● New Mexico
• ● Oregon

23. Practice
Areas for
Limited
License
Debtor-Creditor
Expungements
Estate Planning
Administrative Law
Landlord-tenant
Family Law

24. Educational
Requirement
Juris Doctor (no bar exam- no license),
Associates or Bachelors in Paralegal
Studies,
Associates or Bachelors + Paralegal
Certificate, or
Associates or Bachelors + 15 credit hours of
paralegal studies courses.
Waiver with at least 10 years of
experience.

25. Analysis
The plan is to create a monitored
space in which experimentation can
occur, through entrepreneurialism, to
address the gap in representation.
And to allow paraprofessionals to
performance routine tasks.

26. MAJOR FLAW
Linear thinking

27. Complex Systems Approach
Look at legal services delivery as part of a complex,
organic ecology.

28. Inputs

29. Understanding how we got here!
Begin with history; develop a thick description of the
historical development of the problem.
History
Consider geography, especially cities vs. rural
phenomenon.
Geography
Consider all agents (including social groups and non-
human agents)
Multiple
Levels

30. Historical
factors

31. Racist Origins of law
practice licensure

32. Relevant
inquiries that
haven’t been
considered in
the Sandbox
What is the racial demographic
distribution of the underserved?
How are perceptions of the legal
system impacted by the proposal?
How is respect for the rule of law
impacted by the proposal?

33. Sandboxes are
for
Experimenting
on Who?

34. Please don’t
experiment
on poor
people

35. Missing data
•How is the under-representation
demographically distributed?
• Is it more urban or rural?
• How might this data influence the social
outcomes for the underserved, and their
relation to the legal system and rule of law?

36. Outputs
This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-SA

37. Environmental
Justice
How does the Sandbox address
global warming?
While facially neutral, carbon-
generating technology are
anticipated. What will reliance on
these technologies mean for the
environment

38. AI and
Environmental
Impact
AI and Climate
Change: How
they’re connected,
and what we can
do about it
AI Now Institute
Oct 17, 2019

39. What about Mediating Institutions?
What is the impact on Mediating
Institutions, such as churches, clubs,
fraternities, and charitable
organizations?

40. On the
importance of
Mediating
Institutions

41. Impact on
legal
regulation.
Will these reforms
strengthen the case
for ending the self-
regulation of lawyers?

42. Recommendations

43. Respect communities
Support legal tech entrepreneurialism
and paralegal training in the
mediating institutions of the
underserved communities. Help local
communities develop!

44. Interdisciplinary Research
Fund interdisciplinary research the impact of Sandbox
projects on rule of law, the health of our democracy,
and the wellbeing of historically underserved
communities.

45. Reform Legal Education
Mandate AI ethics and legal
entrepreneurialism training in
the law schools.

46. Why Work so
Hard to Save the
Bar Exam?
If the problem is with licensing…

47. Law Deans
to Bar
Examiners
“Far too often, the bar
exam measures
privilege and
opportunity, rather
than competency to
practice law.
Open Letter from 36 Law Deans to Bar
Examiners, dated October 2020

48. The change
we need
“Why are we fighting so
hard to uphold a
licensing system that is
not evidence-based and
was literally designed to
exclude minority
applicants?"
Victoria Strauss, Washington Post, July 16,
2020.