Fifteen Eighty Four

For more than a century, the legal profession in the United States has tightly controlled the delivery of legal services. Lawyers enjoy a monopoly: only licensed attorneys can provide legal advice, represent clients in court, and prepare most legal documents for others. This exclusive domain has been zealously guarded through sweeping unauthorised practice of law (UPL) restrictions, which prohibit nonlawyers from engaging in even relatively simple forms of legal assistance. Rules of professional conduct—particularly those banning fee-sharing and nonlawyer ownership of law firms—have further reinforced this structure, ensuring that legal services remain under the exclusive control of attorneys.

This system has had many far-reaching consequences—chief among them the perpetuation of a crippling access-to-justice crisis that has come to define the American civil justice system. Currently, in about 75% of the 20 million civil cases filed in state courts each year, at least one party lacks an attorney. Tens of millions more Americans face some sort of legal issue, but don’t take any formal legal action to protect their interests. Put simply, millions of Americans are forced to navigate high-risk legal issues—including eviction, debt, wage theft, family dissolution, and more—without the help of a competent legal professional. The lawyers’ monopoly has effectively shut the door on would-be innovations that might help make legal help more affordable, scalable, and accessible.

Today, however, that century-old monopoly is beginning to buckle. Key stakeholders have started to pay attention to the access-to-justice crisis, and to enact reforms aimed at curbing its harms. And, advances in legal technology—particularly generative AI—have opened a door to new, scalable forms of legal assistance. The civil justice system, it seems, is on the cusp of a revolution.

Against this backdrop of disruption and possibility, a new book seeks to make sense of the moment. Rethinking the Lawyers’ Monopoly: Access to Justice and the Future of Legal Services, edited by Stanford Law School professors Nora Freeman Engstrom and David Freeman Engstrom, brings together leading thinkers across disciplines to assess the current state of legal services and where we might be headed.

The volume is wide-ranging, featuring contributions from legal ethicists, economists, political scientists, technologists, business consultants, and judges. Contributors include, for instance, Rebecca L. Sandefur (the dean of the access to justice field), who, along with her co-author Matthew Burnett, advocates for client-centred civil justice reforms that account for the particular identities, priorities, and preferences of those who seek legal assistance. The Honourable Carolyn Kuhl, former Presiding Judge of the Los Angeles Superior Court, offers a candid appraisal of the court’s successes and failures when it comes to assisting self-represented litigants. Professor Lauren van Schilfgaarde, an expert in Tribal sovereignty and federal Indian law, provides a first-of-its-kind analysis of the codification of Tribal lay advocates—nonlawyer legal services providers operating in Native American Tribal Courts—asking what lessons they may hold for the access to justice movement. And, former Northwestern Law School Dean Daniel B. Rodriguez, together with Professor David Freeman Engstrom, propose an innovative new federal-state hybrid regulatory framework to govern lawyers and legal tech companies in a new era of technology—and, in particular, AI-based legal assistance. These and the many other contributors to the volume provide critical insights and thoughtful analysis to guide the legal profession into its next era.

Notably, the volume does not aim to provide a unified perspective on access to justice, the role of technology, or the civil justice system more generally.  Rather, its many contributors reflect and articulate a wide spectrum of views—some optimistic about the potential for reform, others cautious about the risks of deregulation or overreliance on tech-based solutions. Uniting them is a shared conviction that the current system is failing too many people, and that preserving the status quo is no longer tenable.

At its core, Rethinking the Lawyers’ Monopoly is not simply a critique of professional gatekeeping. It is a call to reimagine the legal profession’s purpose and public obligations. If lawyers are to retain their privileged place in society, they must find ways to serve a broader swath of the public. That means welcoming new delivery models, rethinking outdated regulatory barriers, and centering the lived experiences of those who struggle to navigate the justice system alone.