When treating an orally traumatized patient, the dentist has no less professional and legal responsibilities than when treating a non-urgent patient. After appropriate consent, the examination, diagnosis, treatment and follow-up of the patient should not be negligent. At a minimum, the dentist must not practise below the standard of care of a similar physician acting in the same or similar circumstances. The dentist may also be asked to assist the patient in seeking compensation for the loss caused by the trauma. It took hundreds of years for surgery to be accepted and established in the medical world, but it hasn`t been hundreds of years since it did. It is time for the delivery of legal services to reflect the reality of innovation and progress that we are seeing in every other field – medicine, finance, engineering and everything in between. The legal establishment`s resistance to scrutiny of regulation in law is little more than a combination of classism, wounded ego, thinly veiled racism, and a deep fear of competition. For a profession that prides itself on its evidence, there is no evidence linking a review of legal regulation to harm to the public. Those who oppose regulatory changes rely on ill-informed rhetoric that desperately relies on half-facts to support the status quo. More importantly, this unnecessary back-and-forth distracts smart people from the most important point, which is that everyone should have access to quality and affordable legal aid. People complain about laws that have no teeth – penalties that are not tough enough, fines that are too low, weak enforcement. But who can complain about Pocatello, Idaho`s Executive Order 1100? He definitely had teeth.
The legal system has been so tightly regulated that it has led to a world where only a fraction of citizens who need legal services have access to them. This brings me to the starting point – if only 15% of people who wanted a haircut could actually get a haircut, you`d think the hair care governance structure is broken, right? What if this limited availability was due to the fact that the hairdressers who cut the hair of the 15% did not want to give up their influence on the market? Professionals and organizations who face market demand to ensure people get solutions to their legal problems – these individuals and organizations may not be certified, they may operate in a gray area or even as an unlicensed service, but they bring value. Apps, LegalZoom, notaries, all the people and services that advocate for affordable legal services and support: these are today`s hairdressing surgeons. While JDs may believe that the work of uncertified professionals working to provide legal services is red, repetitive and a profession they consider as Juris Doctors, my opinion is that history will not be kind to people who continue to hold this view and stand in the way of progress. The market for unlicensed legal services continues to exist and will only grow due to protectionist regulations that need to be developed, reconsidered and rethought. Just as the plague has led to an increase in demand for hairdressing surgeons, I believe the COVID-19 pandemic will have the same effect in law. John Lund, one of my favorite legal innovators who continues to be a leader in Utah, asked me this question during a Zoom call. IAALS` Zack DeMeola, also on the Zoom call (and also one of my favorite voices and forces for change in the law), agreed. I went on to note that, even worse, the haircut analogy continues. What if the limited availability of hairdressers was due to the fact that hairdressers did not want to give up their 15% influence on the market? What would people think? Just as we can now look back with disbelief at how surgeons were treated versus physicians, we will one day look back at today`s system that excludes non-juridical physicians from participating and owning the provision of legal services in the same way.
No one wants to be on the wrong side of history – least of all well-trained lawyers – and I think it`s never been more important to think deeply about why only a fraction of the population has access to legal services. We no longer have a few hundred years to wake up and realize that what we are doing is not working; We`ve been suffering for hundreds of years because it doesn`t work. We need to rethink the regulatory system in the law, because with every second that passes, the crisis gets worse. A collaborative, interdisciplinary and multi-level approach of certified medical professionals and skills is something we consider child`s play when seeking medical services. So the question is: Why is there not the same approach for legal services? To be more precise, the upper and lower incisors, cusps and bicuspids. but not the molars. It was sponsored by the local Chamber of Commerce and passed by Councillor George Phillips on August 5, 1948. The decree stated that it was the practice of “too many citizens of Pocatello to dodge, grimace, frown, express threatening looks and depressive facial expressions. These actions cast an unfavorable light on Pocatello`s reputation as a “friendly city” and were hereby declared illegal and immediately replaced by happy, radiant and smiling faces. Here, too, our professional regulations in their current form do not allow this.
