RALEIGH, N.C. (CN) — Two paralegals sued North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein Thursday over unauthorized practice of law restrictions that prevent non-lawyers from giving legal advice.

Morag Black Polaski, Shawana Almendarez and the North Carolina Justice For All Project challenged the prohibition in a lawsuit filed in the Eastern District of North Carolina Thursday, saying that the restrictions violate their First Amendment rights.

“What we’re dealing with is just giving people advice. And when the only thing you’re doing is talking to people about your legal rights, that is fully protected by the First Amendment,” said Paul Sherman, one of the attorneys for the plaintiffs.

Black Polaski and Almendarez each have more than 20 years of experience as certified paralegals. In the suit, they say they feel as though they have had their speech limited as they have only been able to provide legal information and have been barred from providing even very basic legal advice.

“There is no occupational licensing exception to the First Amendment. Nor is there any exception for speech that is paid. The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that the fact that someone gets paid for their speech has no bearing on whether it’s protected,” Sherman said. “The alternative for the kinds of people who the North Carolina Justice for All Project and our clients Morag and Shawana … want to help isn’t hiring a lawyer. It’s doing it themselves with no legal help, or trying to figure out the answers on Google. That doesn’t serve anybody’s interests.”

North Carolina has broad prohibitions on the unauthorized practice of law which prevent anyone except licensed attorneys from providing legal advice. This includes simple legal matters, such as replying to a civil summons or filing a protective order.

“When you go to file a complaint, you have to file a civil summons. And a summons very clearly says you have 30 days to answer. But a lot of times people don’t understand or don’t know how they need to respond, what the format is, where they even need to go to respond. What constitutes good service, for example?” Said Black Polaski, who has been in the legal field for nearly 30 years. “This is all stuff that if you’re in the field, you know it, but the average layperson who isn’t experienced in the legal field, who is watching Law and Order, doesn’t necessarily understand what the North Carolina rules are.”

The plaintiffs say most residents don’t understand these forms or fill them out incorrectly, and struggle to defend their legal rights. But according to them, it only takes a matter of hours for paralegals to become comfortable with them.

The North Carolina Justice For All Project — a nonprofit group that champions legal reform and a plaintiff in the suit — say they are advocating to help a population they call the “missing middle” who earn too much to qualify for legal aid, but don’t earn enough to pay for a lawyer. Polaski and Almendarez want to be able to provide legal services to this population, at a cost less than an attorney.

“We are trying to be a bridge in that area so that we can help with those issues,” said Alicia Mitchell-Mercer, one of the co-founders of the project. It hasn’t been able to provide free legal services thus far because of North Carolina’s unauthorized practice of law regulations.

The project aims to provide a video library explaining how to fill out legal forms available on NCcourts.org, and to help  answer questions, Mitchell-Mercer said. People who didn’t have a lawyer would have to fill out these forms by themselves, without any help or assistance. They also want to provide free legal clinics to help people with simple legal forms.

“And right now, all of that is potentially unauthorized practice of law. And so our speech is chilled, our hands are tied, because there are people that we see everyday that need the help but we are not permitted to help them because we don’t have a law license and we haven’t passed the bar,” she said.

The plaintiffs argue that there need to be less regulation concerning advice and that North Carolina needs to consider allowing non-lawyers to give legal advice, a practice which has already been implemented in other states, such as Arizona and Utah.

“The government certainly has an interest in protecting the public from incompetent legal advice but the means that it chooses to address that problem have to be appropriately tailored to that problem,” said Sherman. “And they have to burden no more speech than is necessary to address that problem.”

In the suit, the plaintiffs argue that the “access to justice gap” harms lower-income residents and can lead to the loss of housing and safety concerns, saying that 86% of low-income families’ legal needs go unmet.