Paralegal Requirements in Montana: Education, Certification and State Rules

Montana does not license paralegals.

What the state has instead is a 2009 statute, Montana Code Annotated 25-10-305: it defines 'paralegal', requires that a person not practice as a paralegal except under the supervision of a licensed attorney, and prohibits the unauthorized practice of law.

The same law limits who may use the title 'paralegal' to people who meet one of its education or experience routes, which the next section lists.

It is a definition and title statute, not a license.

Our research found no Montana legal paraprofessional program: NFPA's list of state legal paraprofessional programs names Arizona, Minnesota, Oregon and Utah, and Montana is not on it.

Montana's statute lists routes rather than a curriculum.

To use the title 'paralegal' in Montana, a person must meet one of the statute's routes: a paralegal associate or bachelor's degree; any bachelor's degree plus 18 paralegal credits; certification by NALA or NFPA; 4,800 supervised hours plus 5 ethics CLE hours; or a law degree.

Those routes are the closest thing Montana has to an education benchmark, and they are what a Montana employer can check a candidate's title against.

They also mean a degree is not the only way in: the statute's experience route pairs 4,800 supervised hours with 5 ethics CLE hours, and NALA or NFPA certification is itself one of the routes.

The only Montana paralegal body our research found is voluntary: the State Bar of Montana has a Paralegal Section, and non-lawyer members must complete 10 CLE credits a year, including 1 ethics credit, to keep their membership — a membership condition, not a certification.

NFPA's regulation page lists 16 state-level voluntary paralegal certifications, and Montana is not among them.

The credentials that matter here are national, because the statute names NALA or NFPA certification as one of its title routes.

NALA's credential is the Certified Paralegal (CP), which requires passing a Knowledge Exam and then a Skills Exam, in that order.

NFPA runs two exams: the PCCE, which earns the CRP designation for early-career paralegals, and the PACE, which earns the RP (Registered Paralegal) designation for experienced paralegals; NALS offers a third family of credentials, the ALP, CLP and PP, though NALS is not one of the bodies the statute names.

Keep the words apart, too: NALA distinguishes a certificate, which shows you completed a learning program, from certification, which validates mastery against a professional standard — finishing a paralegal course does not by itself make you a certified paralegal.

Our research did not confirm which paralegal programs operate in Montana, or which of them hold American Bar Association approval — that is a gap in our research, not evidence there are none.

What Montana law turns on is the route a credential maps onto, not the program's name: the statute's education routes are a paralegal associate or bachelor's degree, a bachelor's degree plus 18 paralegal credits, or one of the other routes above.

ABA approval is something a paralegal education program chooses to seek, and it is approval of programs, not a credential for individual paralegals; earning it runs through a self-evaluation report and an on-site visit, with the ABA House of Delegates giving final approval that lasts seven years.

Ask any program you are considering whether it is ABA-approved and how its certificate or degree maps onto the statute's routes, and confirm its current approval status with the school.