from staff
The Florida Supreme Court unanimously approved creation of the Florida Registered Paralegal Program, which provides for voluntary registration of paralegals who meet minimum educational, certification, or work experience criteria, and who agree to abide by an established code of ethics. The goal is to better serve the public by establishing high professional standards for a profession that has been largely self-regulated.
The program, which begins March 1, 2008, sets up a two-tier system for registering paralegals and also creates a disciplinary system and a Code of Ethics and Responsibility. Registration applications will be available at a future date.
The first tier encompasses paralegals as currently defined by a Bar rule (10-2.1). This rule describes a paralegal as someone qualified with education, training or work experience and who, under the supervision of a lawyer, performs delegated, substantive work for which the lawyer is responsible. Tier two paralegals would have to meet experience, education and continuing education criteria to become registered and then could hold themselves out as “Florida Registered Paralegals.”
The new plan also has a grandfathering provision allowing paralegals who can show substantial experience, but who don’t meet the education or certification requirements, to become registered paralegals. That provision is limited to the first three years of the program.
The new rules do not establish “regulation” of paralegals. Primary responsibility for monitoring paralegals — whether they are Florida Registered Paralegals or not — still rests with lawyers who employ them and direct their substantive legal work.
“This responsibility cannot be delegated, and this voluntary registration program does not relieve the lawyer of that critical responsibility,” the court said.
The Florida Bar special committee that proposed the program began meeting in 2005 after bills were introduced in the Legislature that proposed a regulatory system for paralegals. Those bills, backed by paralegal organizations, would have had regulation overseen by the Department of Business and Professional Regulation.
Florida Alliance of Paralegal Associations Inc. President Tana J. Stringfellow said her organization has diligently pursued meaningful regulation for paralegals for many years.
“It is through the efforts of many dedicated paralegals that this program has become a reality,” she said.
First Circuit Judge Ross Goodman chaired the special committee, which also included paralegal professionals and public members. He said he is pleased with the Nov. 15 Florida Supreme Court ruling and credited paralegal organizations that have been working for so long to get a paralegal regulatory plan in place.
“This was an honest effort brought about by people who did not all agree on everything, but they agreed to try to work around their disagreements,” said Goodman. “I think what we came up with was a really good start.”
He also noted that while the plan is not mandatory now, it may be some day, depending on how the state’s paralegals embrace it.