Best Practice Guidelines for Legal Information Web Site Providers
There are hundreds of non-law firm legal information and legal form web sites, some good, but many are inaccurate containing out of date legal information and legal forms that are not valid in many jurisdictions. [ Disclosure our company operates automated legal form web sites such as SmartLegalForms. ].
To help consumers evaluate the quality of legal information on the Web, the American Bar Association approved a set of best practice guidelines for legal information web site providers in 2003. These best practice guidelines provide a set of standards which are very basic, such as the recommendation that legal information web sites publish contact information, provide notice of the jurisdiction where the legal content is valid, and publish a date which indicates the currency of the content and when the content was last up-dated. The guidelines are designed to be applied to both law firm web sites and non-law firm web sites as they focus on the quality and accuracy of the legal information provided within the web site, and not the ethical issues that apply only to law firms.
Unfortunately, the ABA never fully promoted these guidelines, because of other association priorities, and as a result most legal information web sites are unaware of them. As "best practices" they don't have much force other than than to provide a framework for "best practice" and are advisory only. Many law firm and legal information web sites incorporate these best practices in their design even though they are unaware of the "best practice" guidelines themselves.
On the other hand, we notice new legal information and legal form web sites monthly that pop-up that not only don't conform to these guidelines but border on out right deception. Here is an example: Illinois DivorceOnline.com - subtitled "Official Illinois Divorce Forms"
This web site almost looks like a law firm web site with the picture of a smiling older gentleman with a beard as if to send a signal that this is a web site that can be trusted. The site refers to "divorce specialists, " whatever that is. In many states attorneys cannot even advertise that they are "specialists" and here we have a web site that represents that "divorce specialists" will review your forms.
Closer inspection, however, reveals, that there is no contact information, no support page, no indication of the date when the legal forms were revised, and fine print disclaims any responsibility for their accuracy, which is typical of these sites, but further makes the promise that the company will guarantee that the forms will be accepted by the court and if they are not, then the consumer will get a full refund, less a $50.00 administrative fee. There is no explanation as to why a $50.00 fee should be deducted when the forms are rejected, as distinguished from a full refund. In fact, the only way for a consumer to figure out the refund policy is to read all of the fine print in the Terms and Conditions statement. The price is of the service doesn't appear on the home page. Instead, the user must first register their case and provide information, before learning what the charges will be.
This web site should be compared to: IllinoisDivorce.com , the Chicago web site of the law firm of Cowell Taradash, P.C., This web site also offers a low cost divorce for pro se parties, but there is a clear explanation of the services offered and the identity of the publisher of the site.
The first site is a non-lawyer paralegal document preparation web site which is opaque as to identity, scope of services, pricing, and follow-on support. The second site, is a law firm web site, that is transparent with respect to all of these factors. The consumers would benefit from more law firm web sites like this, and less deceptive non-lawyer legal form web sites.
