Why are lawyers so threatened by paralegals/bankruptcy petition preparers who do as good a job as lawyers?
My friend (an ABA Certified Paralegal and Bankruptcy Petition Preparer ) has never had a petition returned for amendments or because of deficiencies. Yet now a US Trustee imay sue her because she says my friend is encroaching on the profession of law and is engaging in the Unauthorized Practice of Law. (She has prepared at least 36 of them in the last year or so. (no errors). She charges minimal fees ( never over 100.00) She never gives legal advice. She does provide WRITTEN information most of which she finds right here on line (which they read). Since when is the provision of a Means Test (found here on line) legal advice?
What is the matter with these lawyers? I went with her three times to Bankruptcy Court. The lawyers made more mistakes than some of the pro se petitiioners. Yet the trustees treated them (lawyers) with kid gloves. Looks to me like they are trying to run paras out of business. Then who, pray tell, willl take care of pettitioners who cannot afford lawyers?
September 26th, 2009 at 1:57 pm
I call the Bar association a guild…And that’s what it is, a trade guild. They don’t want anybody not of the guild to do the work. And they lobby for laws to reflect it.
September 29th, 2009 at 2:14 pm
When you say “she never gives legal advice”, you are actually hitting on the problem. Many, many people need far more than a paralegal/preparer when they are considering bankruptcy.
Some people do not have to file bankruptcy at all, but are not aware of their options.
Others may choose a Chapter 7 bankruptcy just because they pass the income qualification, but do not know that other Chapters may be a better option.
Bankruptcy preparers and paralegals are not qualified to help them with this analysis. By handing out any information, no matter where she found it, she is stepping over the line, because she is not qualified to decide which information is relevant or important to the client.
Even the clerks at the county courthouse are prohibited from providing written information they find “right here on line”, because they are not trained to know when it applies to a given situation and when it does not.
I am all for giving the ordinary person low cost access to the court system and am happy to see many courts establish self-helf centers for divorces and other types of cases. But these services must be supervised by professionals who understand the law as well as the boxes on the forms.