Immigration Article of the Day: “The Challenges of Facilitating Effective Legal Defense in Deportation Proceedings: Allowing Nonlawyer Practice of Law Through Accredited Representatives in Removals”

“The Challenges of Facilitating Effective Legal Defense in Deportation Proceedings: Allowing Nonlawyer Practice of Law Through Accredited Representatives in Removals” South Texas Law Review, Vol. 53, No. 3, 2012 M. ISABEL MEDINA, Loyola University New Orleans College of Law.

ABSTRACT: Numerous scholars have written about the problems that lack of access to attorneys pose in the criminal and civil justice system, including in the context of proceedings to remove noncitizens from the United States. In response, many “access to justice” activists and scholars have advocated facilitating nonlawyer legal assistance. In immigration administrative practice federal regulations already facilitate nonlawyer practice of law. This essay suggests that nonlawyer practice of law is not the solution to the problem of lack of access to counsel in the context of removal proceedings. The current federal administrative structure not only fails to provide effective legal representation in removal cases brought against persons who cannot afford to hire an attorney, but also fails to adequately monitor and supervise those nonlawyers authorized by regulation to represent persons in removal proceedings. Further, the current regulatory structure may make it easier for nonlawyers to disguise themselves as lawyers, by blurring the line for immigrants between attorneys and non-attorneys. In addition, nonlawyers’ lack of expertise and exposure to legal methodology, practice and the adversarial system, is more likely to exacerbate the problem posed by persons facing deportation without an attorney, than to solve it.

KJ