Titled the Entity Regulation Pilot Project, the new program "allows us to explore legal service models never before possible that could amplify legal access and reach," WSBA Executive Director Terra Nevitt said in a statement. The aim is to widen access to legal guidance about matters such as housing and medical expenses, the WSBA said in a statement.
Despite their best efforts, Nevitt said, leaders so far have "not made a meaningful dent in the access-to-justice gap."
An online portal set to launch Oct. 21 will allow companies and nonprofits owned by nonlawyers to apply for exemptions from the state legal profession's longtime eligibility rules. Prior to the program, only people licensed by Washington's high court — typically lawyers — have been able to practice law.
Examples of services envisioned under the forthcoming pilot program, according to the WSBA announcement, include a social services nonprofit delivering "direct, limited, and targeted legal services related to assistance with housing assistance and eviction" or a tech company offering an app "to assist Washingtonians in determining whether they are eligible to have their medical debt reduced or waived."
Entities applying for permission will need to explain how their proposal would impact the accessibility of legal services and outline a plan to empirically test the proposal's impacts. Applicants will be screened by the bar association's Practice of Law Board before being sent to the high court for approval.
The Washington State Supreme Court approved the program in December, authorizing it for 10 years. The justices plan to evaluate data at the end of that period to decide whether to make permanent changes, according to the WSBA's statement.
The full launch of the program is set for late this year or early next year, according to a WSBA website that describes the experiment as "the beginning of a process, not the end."
"The goal is to learn more and make transparent, data-driven decisions before any permanent regulatory reform is put in place," the bar association said.
Other states, including Arizona and Utah, have similarly explored alternative licensing arrangements in order to expand everyday people's access to legal services. Washington's program, by comparison, "offers the largest economic marketplace for such entrepreneurship," the WSBA said, and draws on the region's status as a technology hub.
In 2020, Arizona became the first to allow nonlawyer ownership of law firms when the state's Supreme Court voted to OK the offering of "limited" legal advice by nonlawyers — a change the chief justice at the time said would promote innovation and allow more people to access affordable legal assistance.
Also in 2020, Utah's Supreme Court launched what's known as the Utah legal regulatory sandbox, a seven-year pilot program that expanded the ability of nonlawyers to own and invest in law firms and provide certain legal services. That program was originally regulated by the high court, though oversight was transferred to the Utah State Bar in 2023.
Ahead of the Washington program, some lawyers worried in public comments that its benefits could be outweighed by the erosion of legal industry standards.
"We already have many, frankly, incompetent lawyers practicing in Washington State," Seattle attorney Paul Woods of Paul Woods Law Firm PLLC said in an email to the bar association at the time. "To dumb down or outright eliminate requirements of legal training would be grossly irresponsible and disastrous, especially now that we live in an age where people can find anyone online willing to give whatever opinion they want on a subject."
Legal aid groups met last year's Supreme Court approval of the pilot project with mixed reviews. The consumer-focused Washington State Association for Justice, for example, raised concerns about data collection, excessive fees and the possibility of entities requiring consumers to sign away certain legal rights.
The Olympia-based nonprofit Sound Legal Aid, however, said the program held "great promise for enhancing our ability to serve marginalized communities by providing legal services in more innovative and streamlined ways."
--Additional reporting by Rachel Riley, Xiumei Dong, Steven Lerner and Aebra Coe. Editing by Kelly Duncan.
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