If the sandbox can support legal service businesses that aid middle class residents with debt problems, “that’s going to have a fairly direct path to the rest of the low-to-moderate, middle-income people,” panel member Toby Rothschild, a volunteer of-counsel to the legal aid nonprofit OneJustice, said at the group’s April 9 meeting. The working group’s divisions, evident for the last several months, have included how to define the scope of the experiment, which the group calls a “regulatory sandbox,” and its main purpose. “Significant regulatory change to the legal sector in California would be a seismic event, one that would almost certainly trigger rolling changes across the United States for years to come,” wrote Furlong in a recent blog post. The direction the group sets for the state, given its overwhelming size, economic strength, and legal-market importance as a bellwether, could have an outsize influence on the rest of the country, said Jordan Furlong, a Canada-based legal sector analyst. That includes the possibility of allowing the Big Four accounting companies to more directly compete with large law firms. What the group ultimately decides may limit disruptions to California’s legal services market-or embolden them. “To exclude corporate clients on the ill-informed view that they get enough, or get good enough, legal services shows the risks that come from a narrow or inwards looking view of the legal market,” group member Crispin Passmore wrote. They say allowing profit-driven companies to provide legal services could spur innovation throughout the system, even if the businesses focus directly on wealthy clients. “There appeared to be support” for restricting participation to organizations that focus on access to justice for “the unserved and underserved,” according to a memo last month summarizing discussions within the 20-person group.īut several members of the Closing the Justice Gap Working Group object to the narrow focus. A California State Bar group is divided over whether to limit a test of new legal service delivery models to organizations that serve low-income residents or broaden the experiment to a wide range of businesses.
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