Legal Question in Legal Ethics in Tennessee

Re: Legal Advice

This is actually an easy question for me to answer. Paralegals cannot give out legal advice to clients on their own, because (1) they might do research on a particular question and find a line of cases, yet they are not able to find the right cases to predict how a local court would rule on a question of law or some fact pattern; (2) paralegals do not have the breadth of knowledge of an attorney --- analogous to the the health knowledge of a nurse and a medical doctor.

Having said that, a person who gives out legal advice in a jurisdiction without being a member of the state bar could be practicing law without a license. If you read the 20 pages of TN Supreme Court Rule 8, which are the professional ethics rules for attorneys, you will have a sense that part of the rules are there to protect the public and part of the rules are there to protect members of the legal profession.

I am all in favor of people learning the law on their own and doing a reasonably good job of representing themselves. I have seen a pro se party beat a highly feared divorce lawyer in Knoxville. It can happen. I also would be in favor of expanding the role of paralegals. In particular, I don't see anything wrong with a paralegal performing a piece of research for a member of the public, any more that it would be wrong for an economics researcher or statistics researcher to perform a piece of research for pay. But, there is a fine line between turning over the results of research and offering legal advice. So the paralegal needs to be sure he or she does not cross that line.