WILMINGTON, N.C.—On Monday, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina granted the government’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed by a North Carolina nonprofit challenging the state’s ban on nonlawyers providing any legal advice. The North Carolina Justice for All Project (JFAP) and several of its members teamed up with the Institute for Justice (IJ) to file this lawsuit in January, arguing the ban violates their First Amendment rights and makes it harder for North Carolinians of modest means to find affordable legal advice. 

“JFAP has a First Amendment right to provide advice about common legal issues, and North Carolinians have a right to hear that advice,” said IJ Senior Attorney Paul Sherman. “Monday’s ruling is disappointing but not unexpected. Courts across the country—in conflict with Supreme Court precedent—continue to treat occupational licensing laws as though they are exempt from the First Amendment. But we remain committed to fighting for our clients’ rights to share valuable information and advice and to ensuring North Carolinians can have access to the legal aid they need.”  

JFAP was founded in 2020 with the goal of expanding access to legal assistance for low-income North Carolinians. The nonprofit is made up of experienced, state-certified paralegals like Shawana Almendarez and Morag Black Polaski—also plaintiffs in the case—dedicated to expanding access to justice.  

According to a comprehensive study, 71 percent of low-income North Carolinians will experience at least one civil legal problem each year, and 86 percent of those legal needs will “go unmet because of limited resources for civil legal aid providers.” These problems are made worse by North Carolina’s exceptionally broad prohibition on the unauthorized practice of law, which prohibits all individualized legal advice by nonlawyers, whether offered for free or for pay.     

To narrow this access to justice gap, JFAP urged the state legislature to enact a “community justice worker” program, like those seen in Alaska and other states. These reforms would allow trained community members to offer limited legal services where they are most needed. The legislature refused, and now JFAP has turned to the courts with a narrower First Amendment challenge. 

“Lawyers have proven they cannot bridge the access to justice gap on their own,” said JFAP co-founder Dr. Alicia Mitchell-Mercer. “Without affordable guidance from trained advocates like our members, countless North Carolinians will face the legal system alone, often during times of crisis.” 

JFAP and its members do not seek to represent clients in court. JFAP’s lawsuit challenges North Carolina’s prohibition on the unauthorized practice of law as applied to pure speech about court-created legal forms for common issues like evictions, restraining orders, and uncontested divorces. In 2022, a federal district court held that New York’s similar prohibition on the unauthorized practice of law likely violated the First Amendment as applied to Upsolve, a nonprofit that wanted to train nonlawyers to provide basic advice on responding to debt-collection lawsuits. 

IJ and JFAP plan to appeal Monday’s ruling to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. 

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To arrange interviews on this subject, journalists may contact Phillip Suderman, IJ’s Communications Project Manager, at [email protected] or (850) 376-4110. More information on the case is available at: https://ij.org/case/north-carolina-upl/