For those advocates who have drawn a line between easing the regulation of the legal profession and improving access to justice, 2021 proved to be a consequential year. Nearly a full year of experience in Arizona and even longer in Utah has shown the early promise of reform—or, at least, the absence of harm.

“The notion that the sky would fall and all hell would break loose from an ethical standpoint hasn’t come to pass. The ambient worry that you saw expressed—that this would be a gut punch to small-scale practitioners and solo practitioners—hasn’t really come to pass,” said Daniel Rodriguez, the former dean of Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law.