LegalZoom Challenged by North Carolina Bar
Legal Zoom has been challenged by the North Carolina Bar which claims that Legal Zoom is violating the unauthorized practice of law statute in North Carolina. The essence of the Bar's complaint is that even though Legal Zoom asserts that their legal documents are created by a web-based software system, this constitutes the practice of law because Legal Zoom selects the content that is incorporated into the system. The Unauthorized Committee of the Bar cites In re Reynoso, 477 F.3d 1117 (9th Cir. 2007) , a case that was decided by a Federal court in California on a different set of facts. In fact, in the case of Legal Zoom, a paralegal or legal technician, conducts something called a "review" , which Legal Zoom uses as a rationale to charge a higher fee. This review is not supposed to be "legal advice", but apparently this gives the North Bar UPL Committee problems as well. We think the In re Reynoso decision is limited to the particular facts of that case, which the Court notes, so it can be argued that is not appropriate for the North Carolina UPL Committee to cite this as precedent, We also that in California there are many non-lawyer providers who provide alternatives to lawyers, including Legal Zoom , which is based in Hollywood, California. So what is the unauthorized practice of law in North Carolina, is not in California. This doesn't make sense.
This is an ominous development as it indicates that the organized bar will go to any length to maintain its monopoly over the delivery of legal services, even redefining what is essentially a "legal information service" as the practice of law. The legislature of the State of Texas was faced with a similar situation several years ago, when the Bar was trying to shut down a legal software publisher on the theory that the purchase of a legal software program from Staples was the practice of law, and responded by passing a statute in response to consumer demand that exempted legal software programs as falling within the definition of the practice of law.
This is not an issue that will stir North Carolina's citizens to rise up in anger at the organized bar for restricting their choices and keeping legal fees unnecessarily excessive, but they should. They should follow the path of Texas's citizen's and put the North Carolina bar in its place.
They are clearly engaged in the unauthorized practice, or else false advertising. Pay attention to their claims. It's quite clear they're selling consumers on the idea of getting the same service an attorney provides for less. They don't and can't do this, but they still imply it every way they can in their commercials. A friend of mine recently got documents from them and then realized she still needed an attorney's advice. What happens now is, because Legalzoom is taking the small business and eating into margins, attorneys have to make it up on the bigger cases. So now when you need real legal advice, you're going to get soaked big time. Penny wise, pound foolish. Oh well.
We have seen so many families damaged by bad documents like the ones Intuit and Legal Zoom claim as as "good as using a lawyer". Just as attorneys may be biased that their documents are better, The author's comments are a little biased because he promotes his own version of legal zoom documents for lawyers to market in their own states.
@ Bubba Gump. You're saying that the supply of legal services is increasing and therefore that the price will increase? Hmmm. That would be an unusual market dynamic.