KNOW, the Magazine for Paralegals Summer 2014 | Page 18

the judges,” explained Hadfield. “The courts
are facing such a crisis with budget cutbacks
and with so many people arriving unrepresented, they knew they had to find a way to
deal with this problem.”
Even if legal aid services and pro bono work
performed by lawyers were perceived as
being sufficient to meet these needs at an
earlier time, nowadays, that is no longer realistic. “Society is so much more complex
now. The amount of legal issues the average
person negotiates during his or her lifetime
has increased greatly,” said Hadfield. “And it’s
not just the poor, it’s 90% of the population.
Hourly rates are beyond the reach of the middle class.”
I asked, with recession still hanging on and
law school graduates having a tough time
finding employment, if this was a good time
to hatch plans for non-lawyers to take on
expanded roles. Hadfield responded by pointing out that more lawyers are out of work
now not because the need for legal assistance
isn’t there, but because the business model is
broken.

Overhead for rent, insurance, technology and
office supplies, and lost time spent marketing, billing, and collecting accounts payable
account eat up $160 of that $200-per-hour
billing rate. “Millions of people need legal
services, but can’t afford the $200 per hour
threshold under the current business model,”
Hadfield said.
Cutting-edge prototypes, such as Legal
Zoom, are limited to only scrivener services because of the ethics taboo on lawyers
and non-lawyers co-owning a business.

“To make real change we would have to revise the Rules of Professional Conduct forbidding these business relationships.” Hadfield
Putting on her economics hat for a moment,
believes that the California Bar leadership
she explained to me that small law firms and
sole practitioners, who make up the majority understands this and that working with the
of legal service providers, cannot bill less than Bar establishment is the easiest way to get
$200 per hour in today’s world and make ends things done.
meet.
I asked her if the Chief Justice of California
might be persuaded, as Judge Lippman was,
Using national figures collected from census
to look at non-lawyers as a solution. She addata and some rough “back-of-the-envelope” mitted she does not know where Tani Canmath, Gillian calculates the average solo
til-Sakauye stands on these issues, but that
grosses approximately $140,000 per year, yet would always be an option. “This is a crisis
the average net take-home is about $65,000- that is not enough in the public eye,” Hadfield
70,000 per year. This works out to about $40 concluded.
per hour.
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