CLE Event: A Century of Helpers: The History of Non-Lawyer Advocacy in the United States

COURSE DETAILS

For most of American legal history, the licensed attorney was not the primary point of contact between ordinary people and the law. The petition writer, the union steward, the settlement house worker, the community organizer — these figures navigated courts and agencies on behalf of neighbors who lacked both money and credentials, and they did so in the legal grey area that has always existed between human need and bar admission.

This panel traces that history from the colonial era to the present: from petition drafters who helped landless settlers assert property claims to civil rights-era paralegals who staffed the front lines of legal aid; from the labor advocates who argued workers’ compensation cases to the community legal workers of the 1970s who helped tenants fight eviction without a law degree. It examines how unauthorized practice of law doctrine has expanded and contracted around non-lawyer advocates depending on who needed protection — and from whom.

The panel concludes with the contemporary moment, in which technology has once again brought non-lawyer legal assistance to the center of access-to-justice debates. Understanding the longer history of who was permitted to help — and on what terms — illuminates why those debates look the way they do today.

FACULTY

Moderator: Sateesh Nori, Chief Legal Futurist, LawDroid, Senior Research Fellow, NYU Law Center on Civil Justice

Panelists: 

Amanda Lipman, Director, Civil Access to Justice Initiatives, Center for Court Innovation; David Udell, Executive Director, National Center for Access to Justice; Hayden Ramsey, Community Justice Worker Project Coordinator, Montana Legal Services Association; Stacy Jane, Director, Innovation for Justice; Jennifer Zelnick, Principal Program Analyst, State Bar of California