Professional body for legal support staff moves closer

Published on Sunday 23 August 2009 20:12

THE well-oiled cogs of legal practice simply could not turn without support staff. Everyone knows it, right down to the trainee who learns it as their first valuable lesson.

In a law firm, such a vague term as "support staff" can encapsulate a wide range of non-lawyers with varying levels of expertise – from secretarial staff, the archive and reproduction departments, to HR, marketing, and business development.

Getting clients in the first place, keeping them happy, keeping in contact with them and building rapport can be just as crucial as that client having faith that their solicitor is the best draftsman in town.

With more than just prowess at stake for outfits competing for legal business, senior solicitors and partners may work less on the day-to-day technicalities of transactions, but increasingly as interpreters of legal and commercial options for the client whose business or personal objectives they understand clearly – being a consummate business adviser is a key element of what the client pays for.

This leaves solicitors increasingly working with an invaluable set of staff who don't fall within either definition of support staff, or solicitor – paralegals. Estimates of the number working in Scotland range from 3,000 to 10,000.

This proliferation has not thus far been matched by national standards and regulation. But for many years, those operating in the sector, such as the Scottish Paralegal Association (SPA) have lobbied for recognition of this body of legal professionals.

Training organisations such as Central Law Training in association with Strathclyde University have been involved in delivering rigorous paralegal training for many years, with SQA and Scotland's colleges also working together on new courses in recent times.

The Society has supported SPA for more than a decade, and in 2008 launched a consultation, "Registered Paralegals: creating a new professional status for paralegals in Scotland". The report suggested the creation of a voluntary regulated status for certain non-solicitor legal professionals who meet specified standards – the registered paralegal (RP).

Responses to the consultation were varied. Generally, the concept of providing clarity for paralegals and employers was welcomed, but key questions around equal access to the scheme, and the associated cost to employers, were raised. The timing was less than fortuitous and the economic decline in 2008 put a halt to development work, as the SPA and Society decided to monitor the market to avoid an ill-timed launch.

We find ourselves in 2009, and development work is once again under way in anticipation of a launch. Maintaining high standards in the profession and risk management remain as important in recession as in buoyant times – and so work presses on to bring the RP scheme to fruition at an appropriate time.

Draft policy decisions are being finalised, with the Society's board and council set to review the final paper, but it is envisaged a relevant qualification would be required for entry. A one-year training period would follow, and during that year, both trainee registered paralegal and employing solicitor would work towards the achievement of generic standards, and standards relevant to the practice area. Qualification as a registered paralegal would follow.

Registered paralegals would be expected to abide by a code of conduct and complaints regime. Discussions are currently ongoing in respect of how the complaints process might look, in the light of a new complaints system that did not exist back in 2008 when the original consultation was launched.

The value of the proposed scheme for RPs and their employers is clear. For qualified paralegals this is a move away from "paralegal" being used as a default term as it may be in some quarters, and ensuring opportunities for career progression.

For employing solicitors, who ultimately must shoulder the risk of engaging non-solicitor staff in legal work, the scheme is another example of a professional support initiative – supporting solicitors, through the creation of standards for paralegals solicitors can rely on.

In the autumn, the Society will provide the profession and all relevant parties with the final policy paper on the scheme, the final consultation. It encourages the entire profession to engage in this final stage.

&#149 For further information on this, contact [e-mail].

&#149 Collette Paterson is deputy director of education and training at the Law Society of Scotland.