By Frederick Joseph “FJ” III Hahn

As I enter my final year on the Board of Commissioners of the Idaho State Bar as President, I’m both grateful and humbled to serve the members of the Idaho State Bar.  Over the course of the past two years, I’ve had the opportunity to meet with other bar leaders throughout the country and my takeaway is that our Bar and Bar staff stacks up with any other Bar in the nation, and that we face the same challenges that virtually every other Bar is dealing with in this fast-paced and changing legal landscape.  One of the obvious challenges we face is the impact of Artificial Intelligence on the practice, but also the growing need to meet the legal needs of our state with a population which is now more than two million people with a bar that numbers only 7,411, of which only 4,138 are active and reside in Idaho.

Increasingly, Idahoans are forced to show up in courtrooms without counsel. This gap in access to justice is even more pronounced in our rural communities.  National data collected by the Self-Represented Litigation Network shows that in most states, up to 75 percent or more of divorce, custody, child support, guardianship, and landlord-tenant cases involve at least one party without a lawyer. Idaho is not an outlier, and as hourly rates for attorneys continue to increase, this gap continues to widen. The reasons are familiar to every practicing member of the Bar: the cost of hourly representation, a shortage of attorneys in rural counties, and the sheer number of people whose legal needs fall between “can afford a lawyer” and “qualifies for legal aid.”

Over the last decade, a growing number of state supreme courts have responded to this gap the same way the medical profession responded to a shortage of primary care physicians: by creating a licensed, regulated practitioner who is not a lawyer, but is trained, examined, supervised by rule, and authorized as a paraprofessional, who is able to provide defined legal services — including, in most programs, the right to charge a fee. Bar leaders in several of these states have explicitly invoked the physician assistant and nurse practitioner analogy to explain the reform to their members. Six states have now implemented such programs, several more are actively studying them, and our Supreme Court and Bar may find it useful to understand the range of models already in operation before a similar conversation begins here in Idaho.

Washington: The First Program in the Nation

Washington created the nation’s first limited license program in 2013, the Limited License Legal Technician (LLLT), which was authorized under Washington Admission and Practice Rule 28. LLLTs were trained specifically in family law; required a paralegal degree and roughly 1,500 hours of supervised substantive law-related work experience; and a specialty examination LLLTs and were permitted to advise clients, help complete and file court documents and forms, and negotiate on a clients’ behalf. LLLTs were not authorized to appear in court on behalf of clients.  Even so, the Washington Supreme Court voted in 2020 to stop accepting new LLLT applicants, citing the small number of candidates relative to the cost of administering the program; existing LLLTs were grandfathered in. Washington’s experience is frequently cited on both sides of the debate, as proof either that the concept can work, or that it is hard to sustain at scale.[i]

Utah: Licensed Paralegal Practitioners

Utah’s program was created by Utah Supreme Court Rule of Professional Practice 4-802 and the accompanying Rules Governing Licensed Paralegal Practitioners (Chapter 15 of the Utah Court Rules), and grew out of a 2015 Utah Supreme Court task force.[ii] It authorizes Licensed Paralegal Practitioners (LPPs) to represent clients in three defined areas: certain family law matters (temporary separation, divorce, parentage, cohabitant abuse, custody and support), residential eviction (unlawful detainer), and small-claims-level debt collection. LPPs may associate with attorneys and own a non-controlling interest in a firm with attorneys.

Within the designated areas of practice, an LPP may interview clients, give advice on the use of court forms, prepare and file pleadings, explain opposing documents, and negotiate settlements on behalf of clients. LPPs are barred from appearing in contested court hearings and from charging contingency fees. However, they may charge flat or hourly fees.  LPPs are required to maintain client trust accounts, must complete continuing education, and are subject to a distinct LPP Rules of Professional Conduct enforced by the Office of Professional Conduct. There are roughly three dozen licensed LPPs in Utah.

Arizona: Legal Paraprofessionals with Courtroom Authority

Arizona went further. Under Arizona Code of Judicial Administration §7-210, adopted by the Arizona Supreme Court, effective January 2021, following a statewide access to justice task force, Arizona created the Legal Paraprofessional (LP) program. LPs may practice in four “endorsed” areas of practice: family law and civil practice, criminal law, and administrative law. Unlike Utah’s LPPs, Arizona’s LPs may appear in court with clients. Licensure requires an ABA-approved paralegal degree or equivalent experience, and passage of both a core examination and a subject-area examination covering substantive law, ethics, and client communication.

Arizona paired the LP rule with a separate, and arguably more sweeping, reform: elimination of the ethical rule that barred nonlawyers from holding an economic interest in a law firm or sharing legal fees. That change created “Alternative Business Structures” that can employ both lawyers and LPs.[iii] The two reforms are often discussed together, but they are legally and structurally distinct, and a bar considering paraprofessional licensure is not obligated to adopt fee-sharing or outside ownership provisions.

Minnesota and Oregon: Pilot Projects in Housing and Family Court

Minnesota’s Legal Paraprofessional Pilot Project, authorized by the Minnesota Supreme Court in 2020 and effective in 2021,[iv] allows approved paraprofessionals to advise and represent clients in landlord-tenant and family law matters. They may appear in court so long as they operate under the supervision of a licensed Minnesota attorney under the Rules Governing the Paraprofessional  Project and Supervised Practice Rule 12. The court’s own order noted that roughly 95 percent of parties in Minnesota family law and eviction cases were appearing without counsel, a statistic that may sound familiar to anyone who has observed most any Idaho magistrate law and motion day.

Oregon’s program was approved by its Supreme Court in July 2022 after a multi-year study by the Oregon State Bar’s Futures Task Force. It licenses paralegals (LPs) to practice in family law and landlord-tenant matters after they complete 1,500 hours of substantive supervised paralegal work and pass licensing examinations administered through the Bar.[v]

Newer Pending Programs

Colorado[vi] and New Hampshire[vii] approved limited-license paraprofessional programs in 2022 and 2023, both centered initially on family law. At least five additional states — including South Carolina, North Carolina, New Mexico, Connecticut, and Tennessee — have working groups, task forces, or pending court orders actively studying similar proposals. This past year the Tennessee Supreme Court solicited public comment on paraprofessional licensure, among other admission-reform questions such as alternative attorney licensing issues.

What does this Mean for Idaho

With 1.4% annual population growth, Idaho is reported as second fastest growing state in the country,[viii] second only to South Carolina.  Idaho’s Bar simply cannot keep up with Idaho residents’ legal needs. Idaho currently regulates non-lawyer legal work similar to most states under Idaho Rule of Professional Conduct 5.3. Paralegals and other nonlawyer assistants must work under a supervising attorney’s direct responsibility. However, they cannot give independent legal advice, and have no separate licensing track or authority to appear on behalf of clients. There is no Idaho equivalent to Utah’s LPP, Arizona’s LP designation, or Minnesota’s Legal Paraprofessional Program. The above-surveyed programs set out several structural choices our Court may consider in seeking to expand access to justice in our state and to mitigate our expanding “legal deserts.” Perhaps the most glaring needs to confront are the practice areas to authorize first (family law and landlord-tenant are the near-universal starting point, reflecting where the access to justice gap is largest); what education, examination, and supervised-experience thresholds to require; whether paraprofessionals may appear in contested hearings or are limited to advice and document preparation; how fees, trust accounting, and malpractice-equivalent liability are handled; and who investigates and disciplines a paraprofessional who falls short. Will a future program require a new office, or will the Bar’s existing disciplinary framework through Bar Counsel extend to a new class of licensee?

The Idaho Supreme Court holds the same inherent constitutional authority to regulate the practice of law by rule, just as the Utah, Arizona, Oregon, and Minnesota courts relied on to create their programs by rule. Whether that authority should be exercised is, appropriately, a question for the Idaho Supreme Court and the Bar’s membership. Filling the access to justice gap is a live question in a growing number of jurisdictions, and one our Bar is well positioned to study based on the strength of nearly a decade rulemaking, experience, and hard-won lessons by other states.

F.J. Hahn is currently a commissioner serving the Sixth and Seventh Districts of the Idaho State Bar. He attended the University of Idaho College of Law and works in Idaho Falls.

[i] Although studies showed that the Washington LLLT program was successful in representing clients in domestic relations, the Washington Supreme Court sunset the program in 2020.  See Stanford Law School Center on Legal Profession. LLLT-White-Paper-Final-5-4-21.pdf.

[ii] The Utah LPP program was initially developed through a Utah Supreme Court task force in 2015. A program overview and requirements can be found at https://www.utcourts.gov/en/about/miscellaneous/legal-community/lpp.html. 

[iii] Arizona Code of Judicial Administration 7-209.

[iv] As of January 2025, the Minnesota Legal Paraprofessional Program was made permeant and expanded the LP’s scope of representation to ten defined areas: landlord tenant, family law, criminal expungement, conciliation court, consumer debt collection, petty misdemeanor, probate and estate, and certain administrative hearings. See https://mncourts.gov/help-topics/Legal-Paraprofessional-Program.

[v] The specifics concerning the Oregon LP program can be found at: chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.osbar.org/_docs/rulesregs/orpc-lp.pdf

[vi] Colorado program details can be found at: https://www.coloradolegalregulation.com/aboutus/pals/.

[vii] New Hampshire program details can be found at: https://www.courts.nh.gov/rules-supreme-court-state-new-hampshire/rule-35-appearances-court-eligible-paraprofessionals.

[viii] https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2026/population-growth-slows.html.