It has been more then one year since Ontario’s attorney general handed paralegal regulation over to the Law Society of Upper Canada. The first licences have now been issued to paralegals.
Consumers have slowly found that many services that paralegals have traditionally offered the public are now only available by a lawyer, at a higher price. The law society has said that services such as uncontested divorces, preparation of family court documents, and representation in the family court cannot be provided by paralegals, in the public interest.
Does the law society even know what services the public wants paralegals to be offering? It did consultations in 2004 of various legal educational groups and other stakeholders. In early 2007, Convocation - which consists of 40 lawyers, two paralegals, and eight lay people - decided to give lawyers a monopoly on most legal services.
More then a year has passed since that decision, and it has not even been reviewed. It seems to me that public interest is constantly changing, and the expansion of paralegal services should be regularly considered.
The law society’s 2008 paralegal budget has been passed, without any funds set aside to hire an independent survey company to finally ask the public what services they want paralegals to offer.
I was offended to receive a letter from the law society, dated March 7 and addressed to all paralegal applicants, listing what services would not be permitted when licences were issued. How did they know that Convocation was not going to decide to expand paralegal areas of practice prior to May 1 official licensing?
Paralegal fees have risen this year as the law society imposed two unnecessary expenses on paralegals. We are now required to carry $2 million in error-and-omissions insurance.
This is the same amount that lawyers must carry. I represent people before the small-claims court and the landlord and tenant board, where the monetary jurisdiction is $10,000. It is unnecessary for me to carry the same level of insurance as a lawyer. This just adds extra costs, which the consumer ultimately has to pay.
Since paralegals charge less then lawyers, they often need to work on a greater volume of files to stay profitable. Since May 1, paralegals have been required to operate the same trust accounts as lawyers.
Operating trust accounts properly is labour-intensive and expensive, whether paralegals do the accounting themselves or hire a bookkeeper.
When a consumer gives a retainer to a paralegal they need to know that their money is safe, but the law society had other alternatives. A low-cost fidelity bond, which other professions use, protects the consumer without adding the cost of administering a trust account.
Paralegals are not the same as lawyers. Just because a system is in place for lawyers, doesn’t make it right for paralegals.
X-Copper Legal Services filed for bankruptcy in early June. The traffic ticket specialists had 10 offices across Ontario. The Ottawa Citizen reported that David Matheson, founder of X-Copper, blamed the collapse of the company on the new paralegal regulations.
He referred to the requirement that as of May 1 all money received for future services to be performed had to be put into trust. Convocation decided that any money obtained for future work prior to May 1 could be deposited in a general account.
David Matheson said, “You can’t go from $150,000 [in incoming revenue] per week to zero in 15 minutes. I’m amazed that we survived so long.”
The Paralegal Society of Canada has contacted the law society and offered the service of some of its members on a pro bono basis, to represent some of X-Copper’s former clients. I find it surprising that the law society did not ask for this assistance, in dealing with this public relations mess.
Convocation made an arbitrary decision that non-advocacy paralegals that only prepare small-claims court and tribunal forms can be licensed. Yet non-advocacy paralegals that prepared family court documents, uncontested divorces, and corporate records, were barred from continuing to practise.
According to s. 13 of the Law Society Act, Attorney General Chris Bentley is the “guardian of the public interest in providing legal services in Ontario.” He is legally required to intervene when the law society puts the interests of lawyers ahead of paralegals.
Despite this duty, the Ministry of the Attorney General responded to my concerns in a letter stating, “As a self-regulatory body, the law society is independent of the attorney general. The purpose of self-government is to safeguard the public interest by preserving the independence of the bar from government interference.
Therefore, it would be inappropriate for the attorney general and ministry officials to interfere in the decision-making process of the law society on paralegal regulation.”
Why, then, did former attorney general Michael Bryant include the “guardian of the public interest” section in the legislation that he prepared? I believe he foresaw circumstances when the lawyer- dominated Convocation might step over the line by putting the interest of lawyers ahead of that of the public.
If the law society and the attorney general refuse to put the public interest first, it is time for them to announce when they will be handing paralegal regulation over to a paralegal group such as the Paralegal Society of Ontario, who will regulate in the public interest.
Marshall Yarmus (
[email protected])
is an independent paralegal operating in Toronto, and is the former vice president of both the Paralegal Society of Ontario and the Paralegal Society of Canada.
