Being liminal? Researching the experience of paralegals operating in a liberalised legal services market

Julian Webb

julian.webb@unimelb.edu.au

University of Exeter

11 February 2015

Who are the paralegals?

• Significant definitional problem• primarily non-admitted individuals undertaking legal

activities in both LSA-regulated and non-regulated entities– Trainee legal executives– Graduate paralegals– Legal apprentices– Legal secretaries?– Unregistered foreign lawyers?– Law Centre, CABx advisors, McKenzie friends?

• IER data• NALP ‘guesstimate’ - ca. 200,000 (incl non-regulated)

The project – work in progress

• Stage 1: LETR data– Questionnaires [1128 + 19], focus groups and

stakeholder interviews [307] – Specific focus group/interviews [10]– Paralegal questionnaire responses [24 +10]

• Stage 2: additional data gathering– 15-20 individual interviews (in progress) – Graduate paralegals with experience of work in

regulated law firms– Convenience + snowball sampling

Paralegal themes from LETR

• Structural change• Access and diversity• Experience/career development• Professional identity and expectations

Structural change

There’s a lot, you know, there’s a lot of graduates out there doing effectively paralegal positions, and in the commercial firms too, you know, as a recruitment partner, why are you going to spend ₤30-40K on someone when you can get someone in – you know, graduate – for ₤20-25K.

solicitor [recruitment partner]

…what we’re interested in, its providing the client with an effective service and if someone, you know, is cheap but good then that – if they hit that benchmark then that’s fine.

solicitor

Paralegals and structural change

• Employment trends– Un/under-employment– Precariousness (McKeown, 2005)– ‘Edge work’ (Francis, 2011)

• At least three distinct groups in regulated firms– ‘Career’ paralegals– ‘Default’ paralegals– ‘Legal technicians’– (+ other support workers)

Legal technicians

…you can convert these kids into specialist case handlers - rather than lawyers or paralegals. They don’t even need a title. But they will be able to run cases, or assist a litigation team. They’ll become an integral part of that team, whether they’ve got a legal qualification or not.

Solicitor

Paralegals and structural change

Competition, commoditisation and ‘deprofessionalisation’

[S]ome firms are running a very clear pyramid structure with only a few qualified people allegedly supervising this bottom rump of the pyramid who are paralegals, [who] may not even have any legal qualification at all and they do the case really at a low unit cost and therefore they make a profit on these high volume cases.

Solicitor

Innovation and new business entities

... with the advent of ABSs I see that there will be fewer training contracts because they will have less of a necessity for qualified solicitors. There’ll be higher use of paralegals in that context ...

Solicitor

ABSs broaden the possibilities for paralegals with the introduction of high street companies offering legal services - they will require the services of paralegals. Also means that sole paralegal practitioners or paralegal firms could apply for ABS licences from the SRA.

Paralegal representative body

Impact on access and diversity

[I was told] “Your CV looks good, but you don’t speak enough languages. You haven’t travelled.” I can’t afford to travel places, I’m trying to pay debts… I’m sorry I couldn’t go to Cambodia!

Paralegal

Many firms are doing that. They call it ‘internships’ and they’re taking on graduates, people with law degrees who have paid the fees for a 3 or 4 year course and are going into voluntary unpaid work. And this benefits only middle-class people, because as a person from a working background, you need to live. You can’t go into voluntary work for a very long period of time and it’s obviously going to appeal to people who have got ... wealthier parents, who can actually work for free for that long period of time. So, basically, it ... sifts out the working class in a really indirect way. And loads of firms are doing it now. So even to get a paralegal role, people are first working as paralegals for free.

Paralegal

Experience/ progression

… you’ve got a lot of individuals who have a law degree, with or without the LPC, who are taking these jobs because it’s their foot in the door and hope they may be told “Well in a year or two, who knows, if you work really hard you might get a training contract”.

solicitor [recruitment partner]

Q: And is it your expectation that you would move to a TC?

A: Normally I think that is what happens here but several paralegals have just been made redundant, so I’m just trying to cling onto my paralegal position at the moment.

Paralegal

A number of my contemporaries are now a year and a half, approaching two years into paralegal work… [and] they’re just struggling to get, you know, to jump that final hurdle to get a training contract…

Trainee solicitor

Professional identity and development

Most students of my institution are solely concerned with the desire to obtain a training contract. ILEX, paralegal, is seen initially as a second choice. If they do not secure a TC whilst at university they may well look at alternative professional routeways once they embark on the LPC. Students are made aware of alternative qualification routes, however the types of firms that visit campus perpetuate the TC routeway.

university careers advisor

I always wanted to work in legal aid; there isn’t much legal aid available any more right? So what I’m going to have to do is finish these two years, these very expensive two years, probably find a paralegal job so that I can build up the skills before someone will even consider taking me on for a training contract . I don’t think that’s very, it doesn’t work.

LPC student

Once in a paralegal role…

• Paralegal > TC: a better approach?• But

– Lack of status– Guarantees of work/career progression– Limited obligation to train– Inequalities with those on TCs

The paralegal market’s not really regulated. You’re just there....

I am effectively a non-qualified solicitor…

Graduate paralegals

Implications

• For recruitment practices in firms…• For regulation….• For education and training providers…

• But what about the impact on those already caught on the paralegal hook?

‘Phase 2’ hypothesis: liminality

In organizational literature, liminality is commonly taken to mean a position of ambiguity and uncertainty, being betwixt and between….

Beech (2011:287)

Liminality [serves] not only to identify the importance of in-between periods, but also to understand the human reaction to liminal experiences: the way in which personality is shaped by liminality, the sudden foregrounding of agency, and the sometimes dramatic tying together of thought and experience.

Thomassen (2009:14)

Demographic profile of stage 2 group

No FEM MALE BME LLB GDL

36 29 7 9 30 6

Russell Pre 92 Post 92 Overseas Private LPC

7 9 19 2 2 22

Lond SE SW Mid NE NW Wales

UG 9 6 6 10 1 1 1

Work 19 2 6 6 0 2 1

Current work experience

Comm pty

Res pty

Othercomm

PI Clin neg

Fam Reg/compl

Constr

Prob In-h LPO

11 5 4 5 1 3 2 1 1 2 1

No of employments:Range 1 – 9Mean 2.75

Total paralegal experience:Range 6mths - 7yrs 5mthsMean 31.69mthsMedian 29mths

References

Beech, N. (2011) ‘Liminality and the Practices of Identity Reconstruction’ Human Relations, 64(2), 285.

McKeown, T. (2005) ‘Non-Standard Employment: When Even the Elite Are Precarious’ Journal of Industrial Relations, 47(3), 276.

Thomassen, B. (2009) ‘The Uses and Meanings of Liminality’ International Political Anthropology, 2(1), 5.

Webb, J. et al, (2013) Setting Standards: The Regulation of Legal Services Education and Training in England and Wales, www,letr.org.uk/report

Wilson, R.A. (2012). LETR Briefing Paper 2/2012: Future Workforce Demand in the Legal Services sector. letr.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/The-Changing- Demand-for-Skills-in-the-Legal-Services-Sector-Full-v2-2.pdf