The exploration of regulatory reform to open innovative new ways of providing people with information, tools, and solutions for their legal problems is now gaining traction across the country and continent, especially in states like Utah, Arizona, California, North Carolina, Michigan and in many Canadian Provinces. Proposals for reform include allowing paraprofessionals to independently provide discrete legal services, removing obstacles for lawyers to partner with other professionals, and creating statewide pilots – regulatory “sandboxes” - to explore new business models free from the restraint of current regulations. This reform movement has fueled debates around the role of lawyers as sole providers of legal services, whether these proposals can lead to more innovation and address the access to justice crisis, and how data can be used to create effective policy. This program will discuss the underlying reasons for regulatory changes, who is driving those changes, the connection between reforms, innovation, and access to justice, a survey of what reforms have already been implemented and what we have learned so far, and how paralegals might work together to advance these innovations.

This webinar is worth 1.0 CLE credit.