Regulating Electronic Legal Support Across State and National Boundaries

Given the combination of digital communications, porous state and national borders, and a growing need for affordable legal services, it is likely that practices now at the margins of legal practice will quickly grow in scope. Technological changes and increasing globalization allow foreign lawyers to compete in the U.S. market for legal service. The downward price movement from this increased competition allows middle-class individuals who would otherwise have represented themselves to hire legal counsel — albeit, in some cases, counsel from individuals not licensed to practice in the client’s jurisdiction, or even in the client’s home country. Regulators, used to applying rules adopted by individual states to govern the in-state provision of legal services, must somehow adapt to these changing practices.

Consequently, lawyer regulation will likely look very different in another couple of decades.