At Stanford Conference, ‘Legal Technicians’ Discussed

Technology is radically changing the legal profession, a Washington state law regulator told an audience at the CodeX FutureLaw conference at Stanford Law School on April 30.

Paula Littlewood, Washington State Bar Association executive director, said law is where the medical profession was 40 years ago when nurse practitioner positions and physician’s assistants were created. Washington is planning to license “legal technicians” later this spring.

“We are heading into the world where we will no longer be educating and regulating lawyers,” Littlewood said. “We will be educating for and regulating the legal services delivery market. And what we need to ...