In a thoughtful article published in 2004 in the Connecticut Law Review, entitled "Connecticut Unauthorized Practice Laws and Some Options for Their Reform," Yale law Professor Quintin Johnstone proposed several options for expanding non-attorney exemptions to unauthorized practice of law rules. Professor Johnstone proposed enabling people who are not lawyers, but who have proper training, to provide certain types of limited legal services to self-represented individuals as a means of "relieving the serious shortage of legal services available to the poor."
Individuals without law degrees are currently eligible to be certified as representatives of Social Security Disability claimants, applicants for immigration relief, and in other administrative law matters. Paralegals in law firms perform a multitude of legal services. Law students participate in school clinics that provide legal services to clinic clients. With appropriate training, such skilled individuals have proven to be capable of providing competent legal services in certain specified legal matters for lower fees than attorneys charge, just as nurse-practitioners have demonstrated that non-physicians can provide basic medical services to patients for less money than physicians charge.??
