Recollections of the Beginning
Michele
Boerder,
CLA,
Paralegal,
Dallas,
TX
25th Anniversary Committee
The following article is dedicated to Tom Hanna, former Executive Director of the State Bar of Texas, and Bob Towery, former Director of Institutes and Courses and staff liaison to the Standing Committee on Legal Assistants, without whom, a Paralegal Division of the State Bar of Texas would not exist today.
In 1977, the State Bar of Texas established a Special Committee on Legal Assistants. The purpose of the committee was to explore how legal assistants might perform work that would assist licensed attorneys. This followed the 1971 establishment by the American Bar Association of a similar Special Committee on Legal Assistants.
The State Bar staff liaison to the Committee was Bar attorney Bob Towery who was Director of Institutes and Courses for the State Bar and also served on the ABA Committee. Towery, now retired in Ft. Worth, Texas, credits then Bar Executive Director Tom Hanna with the “idea” of starting a Division of the Bar for Legal Assistants. “I remember that Tom returned from a meeting in New Orleans with this idea for a Legal Assistants Division of the Bar and was quoted in the Bar Journal. I recall I read that and rushed down to Tom’s office to confirm he was serious and get a green light to proceed. The Bar already had a Division for Law Students, so another Division was not such a foreign idea.”
It was the Committee that considered and eventually recommended the Division proposal to the State Bar of Texas Board of Directors. Tom Hanna, former Executive Director of the Bar (1978 to 1981) recalled that the Bar had gone through its first Sunset review before the Legislature and said, “During the course of ‘self-review’ for Sunset, there were questions about how to better serve the profession and the practice of law, and, to acknowledge those who were in the field of law, but were not lawyers.”
Hanna said that while the Bar had the Division for Law Students, law students would one day become lawyers and then be subject to regulation by the Supreme Court. “At the time, we saw the paralegal as an unlicensed professional who helped provide legal services to the public, but should operate under the supervision of a licensed attorney to assure that the public is protected in the dissemination of legal services. Therefore, in a Division of the State Bar of Texas, paralegals could coordinate with and assimilate into the integrated bar as it developed into its own profession with standards, and, eventually, licensed status.”
Towery recalled that proposing a new Division was one thing, implementing it was another. “Selling the concept was not a ‘slam dunk” and for several years the Special Committee had been rather passive,” according to Mr. Towery. However, “Things began to turn around when George Robertson of Houston was appointed to fill the unexpired term of committee chair. George was very interested in the utilization of legal assistants, and he convinced the President of the State Bar to appoint a legal assistant to the committee. That person was Gerry Malone of Dallas, formerly of Louisiana, who brought to the committee a considerable amount of experience as a working legal assistant. George declined appointment to a full term as chairman, and Wayne Fisher of Houston, the new President of the State Bar, appointed Dick Poehner of Dallas as the new chairman. Wayne was very supportive of the concept and our efforts, and he appointed several legal assistants to the committee. This is when the movement really took off,” Towery remembered.
Towery also said that there was considerable discussion about what to call the Division: “This highly qualified employee... should it be legal assistant, paralegal, or even sub-lawyer as a few suggested.” Also, said Towery, “The State Bar wanted to make it abundantly clear that legal assistants could function only under the direct supervision of attorneys and not independently. The term ‘paralegal’ was an adjective and not a noun. Therefore, the State Bar adopted the term ‘legal assistant.’ I believe this was a very important statement of the attorneys of Texas in the development of the Division.”
Since Towery was involved in the State Bar continuing legal education effort, he was in a unique position to implement a series of educational programs for legal assistants. “For instructors we selected attorney/legal assistant teams in most presentations which had the dual benefit of legal education and the experience of observing a team working together. It portrayed the respect that the attorney held for the legal assistant. Not only were these programs highly successful for legal assistants, but we had a number of attorneys attend and learn how to effectively utilize the services of a highly qualified staff person, no matter what title the person had.” said
Towery.
Towery gave credit to the early leaders of the Division: “In my opinion the early success of the Division was due to the dedication of the initial members of the Division’s board of directors. We made a concerted effort to select individuals from large and medium size law firms and from the offices of sole practitioners. We invited some who had been legal secretaries and evolved into legal assistants, and we invited others who had college degrees with no experience as secretaries. I was particularly proud of Kathryn King Richards of Houston whom I personally selected to be nominated as the first chairperson of the board. Subsequent directors were elected by local legal assistants in the various districts.”
Bob Towery also credits Sandy Keaton Hardin with an enormous contribution to the State Bar’s efforts. She was a graduate of the outstanding legal assistant program at what was then called Southwest Texas State University in San Marcos, headed by Dale Hardin. “When I called Dale looking for a new assistant on my staff, I asked if he had a recent graduate who was not yet employed. He replied, ‘One that I know of and she would be a great asset to the State Bar.’ I got in touch with Sandy, and the rest is history. Incidentally, she and Dale were married several years later.”
Education for legal assistants was also a forefront issue at the time the Division began. Hanna said, “The Bar was looking at education for legal assistants and what role the Bar should have in setting standards.” Hanna noted, “At the time, there were some ‘fly-by-night schools’ that preyed on persons with overblown assurances of career opportunities and training which did nothing to prepare the graduate.” These problems pre-dated the ABA standards and were being addressed by the Bar before the creation of the Division. The ABA began to set standards for educational programs and an approval process for those programs.
In 1981 the “idea” became a reality when the State Bar of Texas created a Division for Legal Assistants on October 23, 1981. Then State Bar President Wayne Fisher made the following comments in the first address to the newly created Division:
Your presence here today confirms my belief that the time has come for the legal profession to recognize the paralegal profession and for us to move forward in cooperation and mutual support to provide better services to the public we serve…We realize that what we are doing will have an impact…We only ask that your Division be given a chance to show what that impact will be. Active participation by the membership will have a direct effect on that impact…I challenge you to fight for what you believe in…
Sandy Hardin, State Bar of Texas Staff Liaison to the Division commented: “Legal Assistants are now, and will continue to be, a very vital part of the practice of law by attorneys. This backing grew out of respect for the contributions that legal assistants make in better serving those who are in need of legal services. We know that without lawyers there would be no legal assistants, but more and more lawyers are saying that they become better lawyers with the contributions of legal assistants. The establishment of the Division is a formal recognition by the lawyers of Texas that legal assistants not only exist, but also that a very high value is placed on their contributions to the quality and integrity of the profession of law…”
Today, 25 years after the Division was established, the name has been changed to the “Paralegal Division of the State Bar of Texas” (April 8, 2005 vote of the State Bar of Texas Board of Directors and May 2005 Bylaws vote of Division members) and changed the definition to use the term “Paralegal” exclusively:
A paralegal is a person, qualified through various combinations of education, training, or work experience, who is employed or engaged by a lawyer, law office, governmental agency, or other entity in a capacity or function which involves the performance, under the ultimate direction and supervision of a licensed attorney, of specifically delegated substantive legal work, which work, for the most part, requires a sufficient knowledge of legal principles and procedures that, absent such person, an attorney would be required to perform the task. (Adopted by the State Bar of Texas Board of Directors, April 8, 2005)
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