Colorado Has Authorized Licensed Legal Paraprofessionals

Colorado's Supreme Court has adopted a new set of court rules that allows licensed legal paraprofessionals to operate independently to represent parties to a limited extent in certain kinds of cases. The scope is limited to fairly simple family law matters and does not involve serving in a role similar to a lawyer in an evidentiary hearing. 

The first rule of the set explains the scope of this practice:

Rule 207.1. Licensed Legal Paraprofessionals’ Scope of Authority to Practice 

(1) Licensed Legal Paraprofessionals (“LLPs”) are individuals licensed by the Supreme Court pursuant to this rule to perform certain types of legal services only under the conditions set forth by the Court. They do not include individuals with a general license to practice law in Colorado. 

(2) An LLP’s scope of licensure is limited as follows: 

(a) An LLP may represent a client to perform tasks and services identified under section (2)(f) of this rule in a legal separation, declaration of invalidity of marriage, or dissolution of a marriage or civil union. 

(b) An LLP may represent a client to perform tasks and services identified under section (2)(f) of this rule in an initial allocation of parental responsibility (“APR”) matter, including parentage determinations, that is not part of a dissolution of a marriage or civil union. 

(c) An LLP may represent a client to perform tasks and services identified under section (2)(f) of this rule in a matter involving modification of APR regardless of whether the initial APR was part of a dissolution of a marriage or civil union, or modification of child support and/or maintenance. 

(d) An LLP may represent a client to perform tasks and services identified under section (2)(f) of this rule in any of the following matters: protection orders, name changes, and adult gender designation changes. 

(e) An LLP’s authority to practice law under any section of this rule includes filing and responding to motions for remedial contempt citations under C.R.C.P. 107. 

(f) Even if an LLP is authorized to represent a client pursuant to sections (2)(a), (2)(b), (2)(c), (2)(d) and (2)(e), an LLP is not authorized to represent a client in any of the following: 

(i) the registration of foreign orders; 

(ii) motions for or orders regarding punitive contempt citations under C.R.C.P. 107; 

(iii) matters involving an allegation of common law marriage; 

(iv) matters involving disputed parentage where there are more than two persons asserting or denying legal parentage; 

(v) matters in which a non-parent’s request for APR is contested by at least one parent; 

(vi) preparation of or litigation regarding pre- or post-nuptial agreements; 

(vii) matters in which a party is a beneficiary of a trust and information about the trust will be relevant to resolution of the matter; 

(viii) matters in which a party intends to contest jurisdiction of the court over the matter; 

(ix) the preparation by the LLP of a qualified domestic relations order (“QDRO”) or other document allocating retirement assets that are not liquid at the time of the matter; 

(x) the preparation by the LLP of documents needed to effectuate the sale or distribution of assets of a business entity or commercial property; 

(xi) matters in which an expert report or testimony is required to value an asset or determine income due to the inherent complexity of the asset or income at issue; or 

(xii) issues collateral to, but directly affecting, a matter which falls within the LLP’s scope of practice when such issues require analysis and advice outside that scope of practice, such as immigration, criminal, and bankruptcy issues that could directly affect the resolution of the matter. 

(g)Within the types of matters and authorizations to practice law identified in section (2)(a), (2)(b), (2)(c), (2)(d) and (2)(e) of this rule, an LLP who is in good standing may represent the interests of a client by: 

(i) establishing a contractual relationship with the client; 

(ii) interviewing the client to understand the client’s objectives and obtaining information relevant to achieving that objective; 

(iii) informing, counseling, advising, and assisting the client in determining which form (among those approved by the Judicial Department or the Supreme Court) to use as the basis for a document in a matter, and advising the client on how to complete a form or provide information for a document; 

(iv) preparing and completing documents using forms approved by the Judicial Department or the Supreme Court, including proposed parenting plans, separation agreements, motions or stipulations for child support modification, child support worksheets, proposed orders, nonappearance affidavits, discovery requests and answers to discovery requests, trial management certificates, pretrial submissions, and exhibit and witness lists; 

(v) obtaining, explaining, and filing any document or necessary information in support of a form or other document, including sworn financial statements and certificates of compliance; 

(vi) signing, filing, and completing service of documents; 

(vii) reviewing documents of another party or documents and forms prepared by a pension or retirement plan which allocate pension or retirement benefits pursuant to a decree of dissolution, and explaining them to the client; 

(viii) informing, counseling, assisting and advocating for a client in negotiations with another party or that party’s representative and in mediations; 

(ix) filling in, signing, filing, and completing service of a written settlement agreement in conformity with the negotiated agreement; 

(x) communicating with another party or the party’s representative regarding documents prepared for or filed in a case and matters reasonably related thereto; 

(xi) communicating with the client regarding the matter and related issues; 

(xii) explaining a court order that affects the client’s rights and obligations; 

(xiii) standing or sitting at counsel table with the client during a court proceeding to provide emotional support, communicating with the client during the proceeding, answering questions posed by the court, addressing the court upon the court’s request, taking notes, and assisting the client in understanding the proceeding and relevant orders; 

(xiv) providing clients with information about additional resources or requirements, such as parenting education classes, and filing certificates of completion with the court; and 

(xv) advising clients regarding the need for a lawyer to review complex issues that may arise in a matter. 

(h) An LLP is not authorized to conduct an examination of a witness. The LLP may only address the court pursuant to section (2)(g)(xiii) of this rule. 

(i) Limits on the activities that can be performed or matters that can be undertaken by an LLP under this rule do not, by themselves, require the LLP to withdraw from the representation of a client if the LLP can provide authorized services to that client. Nothing in this rule precludes a client of an LLP from retaining a lawyer or acting pro se in the same matter in which the client has retained an LLP when an activity, task or issue is outside the LLP’s authorized scope of practice.

According to a Colorado Supreme Court Office of Attorney Regulatory Counsel email newsletter:

LLPs must satisfy the admissions requirements set forth in the rules, including those in C.R.C.P. 207.8. That rule provides for a degree-plus-experience track or a longer experience track, but either way an LLP must take a legal ethics class and pass both an ethics exam and a family law exam. The Advisory Committee on the Practice of Law and Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel (“OARC”) are starting the process of assembling the infrastructure for those exams.

The LLP program is the culmination of years of studying the issue of unrepresented litigants in family law cases – around 75 percent of the parties in such cases – and the programs in other states that have authorized non-lawyers to provide certain services. These licensed paralegals/paraprofessionals often charge hourly rates roughly one-quarter to one-half the typical rates of attorneys.