:: Paralegal Services Bureau

The idea of establishing a paralegal services body in the Philippines germinated, and was first proposed by Atty. Eliseo P. Ocampo, an active law practitioner and management, finance and marketing professional, way back in 1978, when the United States law profession was still beginning to accept the services of independent paralegals who were not members of the Bar. Atty. Eliseo P. Ocampo spearheaded in the same year the organization of the Arellano Law Foundation to manage, administratively and academically, the law school of the Arellano University.

Atty. Ocampo’s idea was to utilize the services, with pay, of qualified third and fourth year law students of the Arellano University Law School. This arrangement would, in the assessment of Atty. Ocampo, sit well with law students who would be afforded the opportunity to learn law in practicum while earning money at the same time for their efforts. Unfortunately, the proposal of Atty. Ocampo was shelved.

It was not until 1999 that Ocampo was able to apply his proposal but in a modified form when he was elected a member of the Board of Trustees of Arellano University as well as of the Arellano Law Foundation. On his initiative, the University instituted a paralegal study program that offered students a four-year course leading to the award of a Bachelor of Science degree in Commerce/Business Management, major in Paralegal Studies. Ocampo was named Paralegal Director of the program and was assigned to teach some of the major paralegal and law subjects. Ocampo complemented the University’s study program by setting up a one year “crash” paralegal course conducted by the Institute for baccalaureate graduates or for those who have finished at least three years of college work, preferably with English as a major field of study. In 2001, the Institute established the Paralegal Services Bureau, which immediately drew the interest of Philippine law practitioners from all over the country.

On August 29, 2003, the Association of Philippine Professional Paralegals, initially composed of law and paralegal professors and the paralegal students of the University and the Institute, was inaugurated with then Supreme Court Justice Jose C. Vitug as Guest of Honor. In his speech before the association members, Justice Vitug predicted that “paralegals will play an important, and inevitably soon, an indispensable role in the areas of law and the justice system.” He went on to say that the paralegal study program of the Arellano University, the first and only one of its kind in the country and in the whole of Asia, and the Institute of Continuing Legal Studies and Education, the pioneers in a highly specialized course, is indeed “a timely response to the milieu. I entertain the notion that paralegal [practice] is a distinct occupation no less than that of the legal profession.”

While the operations of the Bureau have yet to assume full-blown proportions, it is anticipated that the impending accreditation by the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) of the paralegal program of the Institute as a “ladderized” course, which means giving academic credits to the subjects taken by the students, the Bureau, supported by an adequate educational program, will be able to considerably extend its services, including meeting the outsourcing requirements of law firms and law practitioners in such countries as the United States.