PARALEGALS

Are Paralegals the solution

In Perak, there is no doubt that we face a shortage of legal assistants. Many of the younger lawyers prefer to work in Kuala Lumpur, Selangor, Penang or Johore where the grass would be greener. We even face a shortage of chambering students.

As far as I am aware, there are no "paralegals" in Malaysia as far as the term is used in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and other countries. We do not have any body set up for them, any recognition by the Bar Council or State Bar, any formal training for them, any association or body set up for them, any provision for formal education for them and any fixed salaries for them.

What is a paralegal?

"Paralegal is a term used in many countries (a.k.a. jurisdictions) to describe non-lawyers who assist lawyers in their legal work. Paralegals originated as assistants to lawyers at a time when only lawyers offered legal services. In those jurisdictions, such as the United States, where the local legal profession/judiciary is involved in paralegal recognition/accreditation then the profession of paralegal still basically refers to those people working under the direct supervision of a lawyer. In other jurisdictions however, such as the United Kingdom, the lack of local legal profession/judiciary oversight means that the defintion of paralegal encompasses non-lawyers doing legal work, regardless of who they do it for. Although most jurisdictions recognize paralegals to a greater or lesser extent, there is no international consistency as to definition, job-role, status, terms and conditions of employment, training, regulation or anything else and so each jurisdiction must be looked at individually." Wikipedia.

From time immemorial, we have lawyers' clerks who type transfers, sale and purchase agreements and many types of agreements which you never learn at law schools. I remember in the "hey day" of tin mining, I came across sublease, sub-subleases and Mining Permits (statutory forms). Then there were the hybrids like "pok chow", contract to mine, joint ventures and what have you. All these were left to the clerks who copied them from their thick files of "precedents". These clerks will probably have their own "clients" and take instructions and interview the clients and the lawyers merely sign. Things are not much different nowadays, when we have lawyers who merely sign to attest to the signatures of the clients. Some lawyers do not even know what the matters are about and refer you to their clerks who handle the matters. A good chief clerk commands a high salary, and who knows, perhaps even a percentage of the fees (all of which are of course illegal).

The lawyers specializing in criminal cases will have an "assistant", not legally qualified, who will attend court unofficially, get the dates, charge sheets, police statements, interviews with the clients and witnesses (probably like your TV shows even doing some investigations in the process). The "runner" lawyer will probably do the same thing -

getting the police reports, sketch plans and keys and photographs, medical reports, reports from the RTD, dates of hearing, witnesses, and who knows, even the clients.

The civil lawyer can also have someone to run around for him to get the mention dates from the court clerks (except when the dates can only be obtained when the case is mentioned in open court). The lawyer can have someone to drive him and carry his heavy bags of files and authorities to court. I have known of a lawyer those days whose clerk even did the research for him and provide authorities from the digest of law cases. I know of lawyers now who engage clerks with knowledge on the use of computers, who can similarly check up authorities for them.

We also have companies who prepare Wills for a fee and even store them (for another fee of course). This is, of course, legal. Section 37 of the Legal Profession Act provides that no unauthorised person is to act as advocate and solicitor. However, under section 38 (2) Wills are specifically excluded. The fees charged by these companies for Wills are even higher than the fees charged by lawyers.

We also have estate agents (both licensed and unlicensed) who not only help you get a tenant but also prepare the tenancy agreement for the tenant to sign, though sometimes we cannot make head or tail of what the agreement says - but then the tenancy agreements are free whereas the lawyers have to charge scale fees according to the Solicitors Remuneration Rules. The agreements are not even stamped, thus saving more money for the "client".

If we have paralegals, (euphemistically called "legal assistants" in some countries), many of the tasks can be delegated to them. Of course the lawyer will have to assume ultimate responsibility for the legal work. They can help in research, gathering and preparing of documents for the Agreed Bundle and Bundle of Documents Not Agreed Upon, taxation of bills of costs (which most lawyers tend to shy away from because of the tediousness), investigating and summarising the facts of the case, analyzing and organising the information, who knows, even drafting of contracts etc. Who are the potential candidates to be paralegals? Persons with law degrees but who fall to be called for some reason or another. Graduates with degrees which are not "marketable". I wonder why they churn out so many graduates of "Human Resources", "Marketting", "Psychology" and even in computers until the market is saturated.

If these graduates who may not be markettable are trained as paralegals and governed by law they may be an asset and rather than competitors for lawyers, they can complement them.

Submitted by S.Y. Lee