Board votes to enhance Florida Registered Paralegal program.

In lieu of a proposal for mandatory licensing of paralegals, the Bar Board of Governors has instead endorsed an enhancement of the Bar's current Florida Registered Paralegal program.

Program Evaluation Committee Chair Greg Coleman told the board at its May 27 meeting in Key West that his committee unanimously rejected the majority recommendation of the Special Committee to Study Mandatory Regulation of Paralegals and instead endorsed the special committee's minority report.

The PEC, which conducted a required review of the FRP program after its third year, also recommended several ways of improving that program, which were adopted by the board.

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Coleman noted that paralegal members of the special committee, plus one lawyer, favored the regulation of paralegals, while the board members on the committee opposed it.

"We received a lot of comments about this. The vast majority of them, including most of the paralegals who corresponded with me, were not in favor of mandatory regulation," Coleman said.

In addition, as part of the PEC's review, he said the Bar polled those who have become Florida Registered Paralegals, with around 2,000 responding. Although those polled were not asked directly about mandatory regulation, Coleman said they were asked about issues important to them.

"Very few of the respondents mentioned this issue as being significant to them," he said.

Coleman said he intends to stay in touch with those pushing for regulation so they know the Bar cares about their concerns.

The PEC's three-year review showed "that program [FRP] is an unbelievable program," Coleman said. "It's hugely popular and more people are joining every day."

The special committee, appointed by President Mayanne Downs last year to look at paralegal regulation, had determined that the Supreme Court, under its inherent powers to regulate the legal profession, has the authority to license and regulate paralegals.

But rather than a licensing scheme similar to that for lawyers, the committee instead proposed that lawyers not be allowed to call their nonlawyer employees "paralegals" unless those employees are Florida Registered Paralegals, who have to meet specific...