In March 2023, the Colorado Supreme Court created the Licensed Legal Paraprofessionals category, creating a new license paralegals and paraprofessionals can obtain to provide certain legal services in family law.
On April 30, the first group will arrive at The Warwick for the first iteration of the new LLP exam. Candidates will face two sections, one on family law and the other on ethics.
The family law section of the exam is four and a half hours, with two short answer questions that are 90 minutes total. The ethics section is shorter, with applicants facing 45 multiple-choice questions in an hour and a half time frame.
To qualify to sit for this exam, the Colorado Supreme Court approved two paths. “Path A” involves a mixture of education and work experience. On the education side, an applicant must hold a J.D., an associate’s degree in paralegal studies, a bachelor’s degree in paralegal studies, a bachelor’s degree in any subject that includes a paralegal certificate or 15 hours of paralegal studies or a professional law degree from a law school in a country other than the U.S. and an LL.M. degree. In addition to this, they must also have completed an ethics class specific to LLPs or lawyers.
On the work side, an applicant must have worked at least 1,500 substantive law-related hours, with at least 500 of those hours in family law. These hours must have been worked in the three years prior to their LLP application.
“Path B” does away with the education requirement, outside of the ethics class requirement. But it significantly increases the work experience required. To qualify for this path, an applicant must have completed at least 4,500 substantive law-related hours within five years of the application submission. In addition, 1,500 of those hours must have been focused on Colorado family law. There’s also a recency requirement for those hours —1,500 total law hours and 500 family law hours must have been completed in the three years before the application.
Qualified applicants who pass the test will be sworn in on June 20. The second group of applicants will take their exam on Nov. 12.
Once the LLPs are sworn in, their license will allow them to represent a client in certain marriage, parental responsibility, child support, protection orders, name changes and adult gender designation matters, pursuant to the rules laid out in Colorado Rule of Civil Procedure 207.1. The same rule also outlines the limit on an LLP’s practice scope.
CORRECTION NOTE: This article was updated April 17 to clarify the family law section of the new LLP exam is four and a half hours long with two short answer questions that are 90 minutes total.