Page released on the technical course in legal services

In the National Catalog, the technical course has an estimated duration of 1 year and a minimum workload of 800 hours

In the National Catalog of Technical Courses (CNCT), of the Ministry of Education, the page regarding the technical course in legal services is already available, with a minimum workload of 800 hours and an estimated duration of one year. Divided into different modalities, the prerequisites vary between, on the one hand, completion and attending high school, and on the other, completion of elementary school.

An aspect that draws attention is the proximity and similarity between the qualifications of the technical course and the private activities of the law, provided for in the OAB Statute (Law No. 8.906 / 1994), which include, among others, legal advice, advice and direction. This is because, according to the CNCT, the legal services technician will be qualified to “accompany, manage and archive documents and processes of a legal nature”, “provide technical and administrative support and support to legal professionals”, in addition to serving the public and perform activities in law firms and legal departments, including “organization, direction and control”.

It is known that by determination of the Constitution (art. 133) and federal law (OAB Statute) the offer of legal services to society is restricted to lawyers and lawyers. Thus, it is not compatible with such determinations, proposed, even if they have beneficial purposes, but which present, in their scope, the risk arising from the similarity between the activities eventually performed by technicians to those reserved exclusively for law graduates and lawyers.

On the CNCT page, moreover, it is informed that the technical course can be carried out in distance learning with at least 20% of the workload in classroom activities. It should be clarified that, under the terms of Decree No. 9,057 / 2017, distance education is an educational modality in which educational activities are developed by “students and education professionals who are in different places and times”. Concept that, therefore, is not to be confused with synchronous classes.

Important element to be considered in the perspective of joint and shared construction of legal knowledge, indispensable to the development of new skills, including soft skills, which are required of professionals who complete a law degree, whose purpose is to prepare them, in different careers, for the design of legal, assertive, creative and innovative solutions that consider the needs of interested parties.

The discussion on the offer of a technical course with characteristics similar to private law activities and inherent to the legal services provided by lawyers and lawyers needs, therefore, to be guided primarily by the protection of society. Now, the indispensability of advocacy to the administration of justice is explained because lawyers and lawyers when exercising their public office, they contribute decisively to ensure the procedural guarantees of citizens and, consequently, the protection of the Democratic State of Law and of the axiological framework that it is intrinsic to it.

Wilson Sales Belchior