Jayanth K. Krishnan (Indiana University Maurer School of Law) has posted Advice without Lawyers? Immigrants, Legal Deserts, and Reflections on Who Can Practice Law (William & Mary Law Review, Volume 68 (Forthcoming 2027)) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
Immigration law exposes the depth of America’s access-to-justice crisis. During periods of intensified enforcement, including the recent federal immigration operations in Minneapolis, noncitizens have been arrested at worksites and in residential neighborhoods. Families have been separated without warning, and removal proceedings have been initiated within days, sometimes within hours. Furthermore, for immigration cases, there is not a publicly funded right to counsel. Additionally, detention facilities can be overcrowded and filthy and lack basic medical care. Communication is also restricted, and detainees are often held far from family, lawyers, and community support. These conditions deepen fear and disorientation at moments when immigrants are most vulnerable.
Unfortunately, as many immigrant-rights activists note, there are not sufficient numbers of immigration lawyers available, and representation rates remain persistently low. In many “legal desert” communities, there are effectively no lawyers at all. In this vacuum, nonlawyer community advocates often provide the only immediate assistance. Yet state unauthorized-practice-of-law (“UPL”) regimes have long treated such individualized assistance as illegal, penalizing the help most urgently needed during enforcement crises.
In September 2025, the Second Circuit confronted the issue of nonlawyer services in Upsolve, Inc. v. James. Although New York’s UPL rules were recognized as restrictions on speech, prohibitions on nonlawyer services were upheld as content-neutral regulations subject to intermediate scrutiny. By contrast, other jurisdictions have directly authorized nonlawyer pilot programs for communities where lawyer-based assistance is functionally unavailable.
This Article argues for a tiered “Justice Advocate” framework authorizing trained, supervised, and certified nonlawyers to provide narrowly defined legal assistance under robust ethical safeguards. When properly designed, such a scheme honors consumer-protection goals while expanding lawful assistance in legal deserts. Moreover, it better aligns First Amendment values with the rule-of-law promise for immigrants who are in desperate need, particularly given our current political moment.