Paralegal paradox: a lawyer by any other name?

The future of paralegals is "in desperate need of clarification", according to Stephen Gowland, president of the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives (CILEx), which has launched an enquiry into the role.

The term 'paralegal' "[tells] nothing of the qualification or experience of the person holding that title nor exactly what type of legal work they are doing", said Gowland as he called for consolidation in the area.

ILEX Professional Standards chair Alan Kershaw agreed. "There does need to be clarity about the roles professionals perform and the competence of each professional to do the work they claim to do."

He added: "The 'shaking out of the roles' is a natural progression in the market and the world is changing quite rapidly. We want to raise the status of paralegals."

Figures from the Office for National Statistics and the register of standard occupational classification state that there
are 76,000 "legal associate professionals" classified by having "vocational or middle skill" jobs (based on returns
from employers). The Institute for Public Policy Research estimates that this will grow by 17 per cent in the decade.

The excess of paralegals, solicitors and barristers recently received national coverage. The Guardian reported that about one in 300 of the population is a lawyer: "There may be a surplus of tens of thousands of highly educated applicants... burdened with crumpled expectations and
large debts."

SJ asked Owen Bowcott, who wrote the article, why an issue
so frequently discussed in the profession was now in the
public domain.

"Graduate unemployment remains a topical problem following the slow recovery from the recession," he said. "Cuts in legal aid have also been justified by politicians on the grounds that there are too many lawyers, adding a political dimension to the question. If the paralegal organisations are right then the surplus of lawyers is now responsible for depressing
legal wages."

CILEx's parameters for its enquiry include asking what skills and competence the paralegal workforce will need, what is the true position of the 'paralegal uprising' and what role professional and regulatory bodies will play. CILEx chief executive Diane Burleigh OBE said: "The structure of the profession is changing; students and young people need to know what their choices will be."

Grey area

A paralegal's role and responsibilities are a grey area. There is no industry standard as to what level they should be performing professionally, no regulatory oversight and no compulsory CPD.

Gimhani Eriyagolla, a paralegal and committee member of the Young Legal Aid Lawyers, blames a "collusion between corporate law firms, major law schools and high street banks" for the saturated legal market. She believes that the surplus of graduates unable to find training contracts has led them to paralegal work, which is itself becoming an increasingly competitive field.

"Paralegal as a title has no real definition, and the work entrusted to paralegals ranges from routine and administrative in nature to managing a caseload on their own," she said. "This is perhaps, a reflection of the growing number of paralegals who are 'over qualified' or who have accrued a significant amount of work experience,
and are unwittingly en route to becoming career paralegals."

Julie Brannan, the Solicitor Regulation Authority's director of education and training, said that the regulator was pleased that CILEx had launched its enquiry.

"We stated in our Training
for Tomorrow policy statement that the individual regulation
of paralegals is not within the SRA's remit.

"However, regulated entities are responsible for the competence of all their staff involved in the delivery of legal services, and so any light that this research sheds on the work and training needs of paralegals and how paralegals can meet the needs of the legal services market will be of interest to us and our regulated community."

CILEx is updating its competence framework for chartered legal executives which, as per the SRA, include
day-one outcomes.

Employer concerns

At the enquiry launch event at the end of June, stakeholders were quick to raise the pre-existing concerns surrounding the employment of paralegals, one of which was the commercial needs of the firm versus the career aspiration of the paralegal. This, as an issue, has peaks and troughs across the sector and depends on firm size and location.

"Smaller law firms rely on paralegals and their skills to carry out mainstream legal work, but those firms may not be able to plan or resource long-term career paths within their firm for those paralegals," said Jackie Panter, associate head of Manchester Law School, Manchester Metropolitan University. "There is work out there for paralegals but their employers may be unable to fulfil their career aspirations."

Nevertheless, Alexandra Holmes, learning and development manager at DWF, said the firm employed a large number of paralegals "as they help us to ensure we are delivering the best legal services to our clients cost-effectively".

Holmes said that some paralegals do enter a paralegal role to gain as much work experience as possible ahead of applying for a training contract, which "can cause quite a high attrition rate among the [paralegal] group". Holmes added that the firm's work with CILEx helped them to minimise
this rate.

Gowland has urged stakeholders to deeply consider their paralegal workforce and the characteristics of generation Y: "They are looking for interest, making a difference, input change, flexibility, more work/life balance than money, training, and if you want them to stay, recognition and progression."

He said that as CILEx is the largest membership association for paralegals and their only regulatory body, it ought to know "some, if not all of the answers" to the enquiry.

The chartered institute will host a number of focus groups and roundtable discussions in autumn, with particular emphasis on employer groups. The confidential roundtables will take place around the country and in conjunction with specialist firms including Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME).

'Predicting the market is a bold ambition' James O'Connell is head of policy at the Institute of Paralegals "The paralegal profession, nascent though it is, knows only too well Oscar Wilde's dictum that 'the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about'. "Although the paralegal star continues to rise, many in the regulated sector still view them as mere support staff, not worthy of serious consideration. Faced with this lamentable myopia, the fact that CILEx has just launched its enquiry is to be welcomed. "That said, it is unclear what the enquiry may produce. Stephen Gowland has identified two main goals which are not obvious bedfellows: indeed they arguably conflict. "The first is to answer 'whether paralegals can meet the market needs of the future'. "The second 'ambition of the enquiry' is to 'enable CILEx to deliver knowledge, skills and professionalism in a way that doesn't date, a way that can meet the fast-changing requirements of a sector increasingly technology-led, yet still knowledge and skills-led and people focused, and in a way that will be appropriate for every type of legal business, that businesses and individuals will have trust in'. "Given the unregulated sector's explosive growth in all manner of unexpected ways, and the fact that many firms feel the regulated sector is so fast-changing, it is pointless to make predictions even about where the sector will be at the end of next year. "CILEx is to be congratulated on its ambition. It is 'anticipated to deliver a holistic view of the future market context (regulated and unregulated) for legal services delivery from 2020'. "There is no shortage of near-term pundits, but predicting the market in 2020 is a bold ambition and might prove too ambitious. That said, it is refreshing to see someone taking a longer-term view for once. My organisation will be responding enthusiastically and constructively. You should too."

 

Laura Clenshaw is junior writer for Solicitors Journal

laura.clenshaw@solicitorsjournal.co.uk

SJ

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