Legal Practitioners are the Nurse Practitioners of the Legal Profession
The access to justice gap is an enduring issue in Maryland, as many people cannot afford to hire an attorney to help them protect their rights and interests in civil proceedings, placing them at a significant disadvantage.
While Maryland and many other states have legal service organizations that offer free direct legal assistance and connect them to pro bono services, the resources available are insufficient to help about 80% of the people who need help with civil cases. Additionally, in some legal matters, the demand for legal help is acute and the status quo of not providing legal assistance can have rippling repercussions on the individual, family, community and state as a whole.
Enter Legal Practitioners, a potential solution to the widening access to justice gap. Akin to nurse practitioners, legal practitioners are people with robust training in discrete areas of law where the need is the greatest and where attorneys are not currently meeting the need.
A growing number of states are creating new tiers of service within the legal profession and permitting Legal Practitioners to assist people with legal needs. Generally, to become a Legal Practitioner, candidates can navigate several distinct pathways that prioritize either formal education—such as specialized degrees in law or paralegal studies—or significant “on-the-ground” substantive experience. While some states require a rigorous combination of both to ensure competency, others allow veteran paralegals to substitute years of supervised work for academic credits. Furthermore, the scope of practice for these professionals is not uniform; depending on the state, a Legal Practitioner’s authority may be narrow, focusing strictly on housing or debt collection, or broad enough to include representation in complex family law matters and limited criminal cases.
Ultimately, the significant gap in access to justice in Maryland continues to cause devastating consequences for hundreds of thousands of unrepresented individuals each year. Maryland can build a more equitable legal system by creating new tiers of legal professionals. The Innovations in Tiered Legal Services Task Force, a joint effort by the Maryland Judiciary, the Maryland State Bar Association (MSBA), and the Maryland Access to Justice Commission (A2JC), aims to tackle the justice gap created by a lack of legal representation head-on. The Task Force’s efforts are focused, in part, on studying a nationwide movement to create different tiers within the legal profession, including legal practitioners, and making recommendations for reform.
The Task Force, which launched in September 2024, is expected to report its findings and recommendations by spring 2026.