Do It Yourself Law on the Internet vs. Us, the Lawyers
Friday, Feb. 6, 2004: 3:15 p.m. – 5:15 p.m.
Description:
Why bother with a law firm if you can get all the divorce papers, wills or other consumer legal services over the Internet? The emergence of legal service websites that claim 10, 20, even 30,000 transactions are already having an impact on the legal profession. Smart lawyers are developing competitive but lawyer-run sites that tap a whole new market for legal services. The ABA House of Delegates just passed a set of Best Practice Guidelines for Consumer Legal Web sites. How do the current crop of lawyer, non-lawyer, and anti-lawyer web sites stack up against the Guidelines? And how can your firm leverage the lessons of these pioneers?
Panelists:
Aman Bagga, Ernst & Young
Richard Granat, Mylawyer.com
William Hornsby, American Bar Association
Blair Janis, Ballard, Spahr, Andrews & Ingersoll
James Keane, Jkeane.Law.Pro
Marc Lauritsen, Capstone Practice Systems
Ronald Staudt, Chicago Kent College of Law
ethicalEsq would love to attend, given our interest in containing the definition of the Practice of Law and promoting Self-Help & Pro Se Law. However, we don’t know the way to San Anton’.
I’ll have to admit that the panel sounds incredibly interesting. As a solo, I have a particularly unique interest in evaluating the self-help and legal referral sites because if I can’t represent a potential client because of financial issues (they can’t pay) or lack of experience (which would be family law and probate matters), I’d like a reliable place to refer them. Right now, I hesitate to refer clients to these kinds of sites because I don’t know how well they work or how responsive they are.
Of course, the ABA best practices guide (at this link) http://www.namechangelaw.com/ABA%20best%20practices.htm doesn’t really address those kinds of issues – it deals primarily with matters like reliability of information, credibility, etc…What I’m talking about is a Consumer Reports-like testing of these sites with ratings on accuracy of information, extent of explanation, cost, responsiveness, etc…I’d want the site tested by attorneys, paralegals and ordinary consumers. That would give me a comfort level in actually sending clients to those sites (as an aside, I can say that I have used some referral sites to try to find referrals for clients and they have been awful – no responses at all — and I am an attorney!)
Comment by Carolyn Elefant — January 14, 2004 @ 5:51 pm
Consumer-Report-like reviews would indeed be great. I’m afraid the critical mass of suppliers and consumers doesn’t exist yet to warrant such attention from a publication like Consumer Reports — but maybe we could send them an email suggesting such a project.
The skeptic in me thinks the organized bar does not want to know if such sites are any good; far better to just deride them as inferior sources of service.
From my perspective, we should be expanding and creating court-related programs, such as those in California and Nevada, see http://www.co.clark.nv.us/district_court/self_help_center.htm, where consumers have access to helpful, competent computer self-help programs (and courthouse selfhelp centers) for matters such as divorce and child custody, landlord issues, plus small claims courts, and more. It’s clear that many of the kinds of everyday legal issues faced by Jane and Joe Client can be readily served through such programs. Of course, that would in the near future put a lot of lawyers out of work.
I think that both Montgomery County, MD, and D.C. have programs to help people “do” their own divorces. Check into them for referrals.
p.s. I think you are personally responsible for 70% of all the Comment words written at weblawgs. Like you, I wish more people took the time to Comment. In addition, having webloggers respond to a post with a post (especially when they have TrackBack) is a very good way to expand the number of people thinking about a particular topic. I wish your site had that feature.
Comment by David Giacalone — January 14, 2004 @ 9:15 pm