Difference Between Legal Document Assistant and Legal Technicians

As the State of California attempts to deal with the fact that most people cannot afford an attorney for their legal issues, their response is to create a new legal specimen they will call “Legal Technicians”.

These new legal technicians are really just a new name to an old industry called Legal Document Assistants.  Why they think that creating a new name will help people get more legal assistance is beyond me.

As it stands now, the Legal Document Assistant industry (which is what we are ) is a barely known term.  And this is after 13 years!  In fact, there are less than 600 legal document assistants in all of Los Angeles County.  And many of these are folks out of the County who want to carry multiple licenses so they can obtain business in other Counties.

It is almost laughable.  California is looking at Washington State for guidance on the issue.  What they don’t realize is that the requirements to become a legal technician is the exact same as that of legal document assistants currently in California.

There is one small condition that is different.  You have to take a test.  In California, you have to meet certain educational and experience guidelines to become a legal document assistant.  You also have to get licensed and bonded in the County you provide services.  The only difference is that you do not have to pass a test.

However, California has what is known as the CLA which stands for certified legal assistant.  This test is mostly for Paralegals who are working under an attorney, but how much do you want to bet that this test becomes the standard in California if they ever try to bring Legal Technicians to fruition in California.

I, for one, don’t think that they will ever develop a legal technician industry in California.  Heck, they can’t even get the legal document assistant name off the ground in over 13 years.

We are a licensed and bonded legal document assistant firm in Santa Clarita that specializes in divorce.  If they ever do bring the legal technician profession to California we will simply take the test and change what we call ourselves.  But again, I don’t think it will ever happen.