eLawyering Blog : Online Legal Services : DirectLaw : Document Automation, Web-Enabled Document Assembly, Virtual Lawyering

The Committee on Attorney Advertising of the New Jersey Court System issued an Advisory Opinion this week that stated that a Total Bankruptcy web site,  published by TotalAttorneys®, a law firm marketing and services organization based in Chicago, is misleading and in violation of the Rule of Professional  Conduct 7.1 (a) .Download Full Opinion .

The Committee also ruled that the web site was not an impermissible referral service and that Attorneys are not flatly prohibited from paying for advertising on a "pay-per-lead" or "pay per click" basis. That's good news for TotalAttorneys and other performance-based marketing schemes on the Internet.

The Committee sets out clearly that "Attorney advertising cannot be misleading or omit operative facts." and found that the website did not provide sufficient information to the user and is misleading. 

In this case, the user was directed to only one attorney based on the purchase of exclusive rights to a geographical area. To avoid misleading consumers, the Committee stated, the methodology for the selection of the attorney's name must be made clear, including the fact that the website limited participation to one (paying) attorney per geographical area. Further, the Committee specified that all requirements to participate in the website must be clearly specified; a full list of participating attorneys must be readily accessible, and the website must inform the user that the attorneys have paid a fee to participate.

It is easy for attorneys to violate their professional obligations and expose themselves to bar sanctions, by ignoring the fine print in their agreements with Internet-based marketing websites.

For example, no less a credible organization as Lexis-Nexis®,  recently launched a direct to consumer web site, called  EZLAW.COM. The website purports to offer wills, powers of attorney and advance directives forms bundled with legal advice for a fixed and reasonable fee. A goal I would heartily endorse.

However, the site seems to suffer from the same issues as the TotalAttorney's web site when viewed through the lense of the New Jersey Advisory Opinion.

At EZLAW, the site operator provides a mechanism for consumers to assemble legal documents on-line and then make available a network of attorneys to provide legal advice as part of the offered package. In describing its Attorney Network, EZLAW states that:

They are all prescreened by EZLaw to ensure that you get professional, experienced and confidential legal counsel. To be included in our network, attorneys must meet our rigorous 12-point checklist of criteria.

This suggests that EZLAW is vouching for the quality of the qualifications of the participating attorneys, not only whether an attorney has practiced a number of years or maintains a certain level of malpractice, and this could be construed as misleading.

Moreover, the NJ Opinion states clearly that as a form of attorney advertising, " a full list of participating attorneys must be readily accessible," but on the EZLAW web site no list of participating attorneys is to be found.

Moreover the limited representation agreement executed by the client with the law firm is provided by EZLAW on behalf of the law firm, so the client never knows the identity of the law firm prior to entering into an engagement with the attorney. Normally you would expect that the client would enter into a limited retainer agreement directly with the law firm. I never heard of a retainer agreement that wasn't entered into directly between the client and the law firm. Not in this case.

Click here for a copy of the Representation Agreement between EZLAW and the client.  You decide whether  this agreement is ethically compliant? I am interested in hearing other opinions about this agreement. If you have one. please comment.

So what's the bottom line? Lawyer's need to read the fine print. Lawyers need to have a  full understanding of how their ethical obligations apply  to these new Internet-based marketing schemes lest they be caught in a web of disciplinary proceedings that wasn't part of the bargain. 

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ABA President B. Lamm has created a new Commission on Ethics called Ethics 20/20 to review  ethics rules and regulation of the legal profession in the United States in the context of a global legal services marketplace. Hearings will be held at ABA Meetings to get input from various interests on how to reform or modify the ABA Code to enable US law firms to remain competitive in an age where Internet  technology is pervasive.

I have been invited by the Commission to testify and submit a statement at the ABA Mid-Year Meeting in Orlando, where the Commission is holding one of its first public hearings.

My statement will discuss the following topics:

• how the rules of professional responsibility function as a deterrent to innovation;
• issues relating to the unauthorized practice of law and the definition of "the practice of law;"
• legal referral concepts in the age of the Internet;
• state rules of professional responsibility that require a "physical" business office in order to practice law in that state;
• the potential for cloud computing;
• enabling the delivery of limited legal services online;
• law firm ownership structure as it relates to innovation in the delivery of legal services;
• and the eLawyering Task Force Recommended Guidelines for the Delivery of OnLine Legal Services.

I am looking for suggestions and ideas about other issues that relate to the delivery of online legal services and the rules of professional responsibility. Any ideas are welcome. Just comment on this blog.

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Total Attorneys has responded to Attorney Zenas Zelotes filing of ethics complaints in 47 different jurisdictions.

The Total Attorneys response can be found here.

Total Attorneys summarizes its response as follows:

"In a nutshell, Mr. Zelotes’s 303-page complaint (including exhibits) alleges that Total Bankruptcy (and various other Total Attorneys companies) is a for-profit referral service, that the business model of the Total Attorneys marketing sites amounts to impermissible fee splitting, that our advertising is impermissible solicitation and that our advertising is misleading. The complaint is a hodge-podge of hearsay, factually inaccurate statements, and carefully selected lines from a myriad of state advisory opinions taken wholly out of context, all crafted together to paint a picture of our program that could not be ignored by state regulatory counsel."

This is a complicated issue that needs further analysis, as there are two sides to this story. Supporting documents in the Total Attorneys response which require further examination include:

Zelotes Complaint with Exhibits

Total Attorneys Response filed in Illinois

Zelotes Reply

South Carolina Ethics Opinion

Kentucky Ethics Opinion

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 TotalAttorneys, a so-called marketing association of attorneys that operates legal referral web sites,  such as TotalDivorce and TotalBankruptcy , is being sued in multiple jurisdictions by Attorney Zenas Zelotes, a consumer bankruptcy attorney, based in Hartford, Connecticut and Nevada, for violation of bar referral rules that exist in every state. The Connecticut Law Tribune just released a headline story about the pending Zelotes v. Chern et al .ethics investigations (wherein more than 500 bankruptcy practitioners face possible professional discipline for certain business transactions with Illinois Attorney Kevin W. Chern d/b/a Total Attorneys et al.).  The story in Monday's Connecticut Law Tribune summarizes recent findings of probable cause in Connecticut that certain attorneys doing (or having done) business with Chern committed professional misconduct.  The story (which is available on line now and which will be released in print edition on Monday) can be found by clicking on the following link: http://www.ctlawtribune.com/default.aspx .

One problem with web-based legal referral directories like the TotalAttorney directories is that the user doesn't see the qualifications of the law firm on the web site, Instead, the prospect submits information about their case which is then sent to a selected number of law firms who pay  high referral fees for the leads. The consumer is really unaware of the identity of the law firm to which they are being referred. Placement in the directory is based on the law firm's ability to pay the "marketing fee" .

Other law firm directories are more transparent and let the consumer view the attorneys profile on line which enables the prospect to make their own judgment about which law firm they want to explore a potential relationship or engagement. These more transparent directories include Findlaw, Lawyers.com, Nolo.com, and AVVO. The more transparent and information robust an attorney directory is, the more consumer friendly it is.  When a consumer provides information to an on line questionnaire when the identity of the law firm is masked by the web site, the consumer is assuming more risk that the attorney really meets their needs. Caveat Emptor !!

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