There may be no more critical issue facing the legal profession than reregulation of legal services. Amid an escalating crisis in access to justice, proponents of regulatory reform argue that the only way to meaningfully address the crisis is to loosen restrictions on non-lawyers investing in and providing legal services. 

So critical is the issue that GPSolo, the magazine of the American Bar Association’s Solo, Small Firm and General Practice Division, has devoted its most recent issue to the topic, assembling a roster of contributors who are among the nation’s leading experts on regulatory reform. 

In this special LawNext episode in conjunction with GPSolo, five of those contributors come together to share and discuss their views on reregulation:

• Zachariah DeMeola, director of legal education and the legal profession at the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System.
• Joseph Gartner, director and counsel, ABA Center for Innovation.
• Judy Perry Martinez, past president of the ABA and former chair of the ABA’s Presidential Commission on the Future of Legal Services, whose 2016 Report on the Future of Legal Services influenced many of the reform initiatives now underway. 
• Patrick Palace, the past president of the Washington State Bar Association and current member of the executive council of the National Conference of Bar Presidents and the board of the ABA Center for Innovation, who served as editor of the GPSolo issue. 
• Vice Chief Justice Ann A. Scott Timmer of the Arizona Supreme Court, who chaired the Arizona Supreme Court’s Task Force on the Delivery of Legal Services, which recommended rules ultimately adopted by the court that created a new tier of legal services provider and eliminated the ban on non-lawyer ownership.

Note: For previous LawNext episodes featuring some of these panelists, see:

• Supreme Court Justice Ann Timmer on Arizona’s Sweeping Regulatory Reforms (2021).
• Incoming ABA President Judy Perry Martinez (July 29, 2019). 
• LawNext Episode 34: Alternative Legal Models – A Panel Discussion (with Patrick Palace and others)(April 9, 2019).

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