Detroit News just published an article on the decrease in divorces because of the recession - a national trend, and an increase in pro se divorces in Detroit, also a national trend. The article discussed the possibility that law firms could offer "unbundled legal services" as a way of reducing the cost of divorce, but apparently there are very few Michigan law firms that provide this kind of limited legal service.
One law firm in Michigan that is pioneering in offering a reasonably priced limited legal service for divorcing couples over the Internet is Calibre Law, PLC at Michigan Virtual Law, one of the law firm;s in the DirectLaw network. Calibre is Michigan's first virtual law firm. Calibre offers no-fault divorce forms with legal advice for a reasonable fixed fee.
Calibre Law is lead by Edward F. Hudson II. a litigator with experience in estate planning, family law, and small business disputes. Based in Royal Oak, Michigan and launched only a few months ago, Attorney Hudson, plans to have an impact on making legal services affordable throughout the entire Detroit metropolitan area.
We discussed the two heads of the definition of virtual law practice:practising law over the Internet through a secure online portal and practising law under one brand through satellite offices (which are often home offices).
Nicole is an early adopter who described her experience in managing Heritage Law, a paperless office where most staff work from home.Some staff are located in places such as Victoria and the Sunshine Coast that are remote from Heritage Law’s central office in West Vancouver.Heritage Law soon will be implementing DirectLaw through a separate business model called Heritage Law Online, subject to regulatory approval.
I analyzed Web-enabled virtual law practice using the Eliminate-Reduce-Raise-Create grid, which sets out a framework for contrasting innovative value propositions with conventional value propositions.It comes from a book called Blue Ocean Strategy.Among other things, Web-enabled virtual law practice eliminates the visit to the lawyer’s office, reduces cost and waste, raises a lawyer’s reach beyond his or her immediate geographical area, and creates a packaged solution.I also discussed Chrissy Burns’ PhD thesis, entitled “Online Legal Services—A Revolution that Failed?.”It is found at http://tinyurl.com/kvtden.
Simon discussed the regulatory issues involved in setting up a virtual law practice in Canada.Canadian regulators have not addressed virtual law practice specifically but there are issues with regard to limited scope representation, preservation of data, and the client identification and verification rules.
Our PowerPoint slides from the presentation are located here:
When I was interviewed for the Wired Article, I didn't know the focus of the article, and I was simply reporting my experience in offering limited legal services to consumers for a fee they can afford. I wasn't saying at all that lawyer's should do less competent or less excellent work. Rather I was thinking about how legal transactional events between consumer and lawyer can be restructured to get to the "good enough result" that many consumers seem to want.
My best example is one that I participate in daily, and which I mentioned in previous blog post. Divorcing couples opt for a quick settlement, even if they don't get "every right" they are entitled to in the interest of reducing their legal fees and getting on with their lives.
Divorce lawyers can charge from $5,000 - $10,000 (low-end of fee schedule) for even a relatively simple divorce. case. The lawyers will say there are no simple divorce cases. But that is from the the viewpoint of the lawyer. From the consumer point of view, they have a choice to spend $5,000 for each counsel who is representing either party- or to take the money and use it to get on with their lives. The question is-- what is the ROI from the consumer's point of view? Sometimes the investment of $5,000.00 in legal fees is worth it. ($5,000.00 is really a low end estimate). Consumers don't think so, or there would not be thousands of pro se litigants representing themselves in family court. Pro Se Representation is a good example of a restructuring of the lawyer/client relationship to get a "good enough result." The success of LegalZoom - admittedly a service which is a very small step above a bare legal forms service is more evidence of consumer preferences.
So is the movement towards "limited legal services." Lawyers, mostly solos and small law firms, that think that otherwise and think that full service representation is the only way to go are not facing consumer reality. These lawyers are living in a dream world.
Consumers want solutions to their legal problems. If they can get legal solutions in a different form than a traditional legal service from an attorney that is "good enough" at much less cost, they will turn away from the legal profession and seek those alternatives if they get a result that satisfies their expectations.
The American Bar Association Journal has started a new Legal Rebels project to get lawyers thinking about how to change the legal profession. The Journal recognizes that the legal profession is undergoing structural change accelerated by the current recession, and that as the economy emerges from this recession, the landscape of the legal profession will be very different from the one that we have now know.
Searching for new ways of practicing law, the Journal will profile 50 or so lawyers who are demonstrating new ways of serving clients by expanding their markets, delivering legal services in a different ways, or creating new styles of legal practice. The plan is to tell the stories of these lawyers through a variety of social media channels using text, pictures, audio and video.
A colleague of mine, Jeffrey Hughes, was named today in the first group of profiles for his innovative and ground-breaking work in combining a law practice within the context of a coffee house under the Legal Grind brand, serving "legal counsel" and good coffee in a community setting. Legal Grind is an excellent example of delivering "unbundled" or "limited legal services" at prices that people can afford.
The month's WIRED Magazine, (September 2009) has an interesting article on how the Internet is enabling "Good Enough" solutions, (when cheap and simple is just fine). I have maintained for a long time that often there is a certain amount of overkill when lawyers tackle a problem, when consumers really want a quick and reasonably priced result. Consumers will often sacrifice securing every "right" they have in order to save thousands of dollars in legal fees. I see this in the divorce area in my online practice all of the time. Often the divorcing parties want to get on with their life at the lowest possible cost. Rather than spend $15,000 in legal fees pursuing every right that the parties think they have, often the best solution is to use the funds that would have been spent on legal fees to invest in their individual futures. The present recession is accelerating these trend.
Lawyers are taught to represent a client "zealously". In fact they are required by the ethical codes of professional conduct to do so -- but at what price. Pursuing every legal angle results in prohibitive legal fees that the average consumer or small business can't afford. There must be a better way to practice law without breaking the bank.
DirectLaw has announced that the Law Office of Kyle Rhodes, based in Fort Worth, Texas has subscribed to DirectLaw's virtual law firm platform to enable the firm to offer legal services over the Internet to Texas residents. The firm focuses on offering Texas, Wills, Texas Trusts, and other asset protection documents for a fixed price, bundled with legal advice.
This law firm is not a pure virtual law firm as Attorney Rhodes maintains a downtown Ft. Worth office for clients who prefer to meet with him face-to-face. This is a good example of what I call, "click-and-mortal" - combining a virtual law practice with an off-line physical practice. The market research that we have conducted suggests that the most effective implementation of the "virtual law firm" concept is as an add-on to a office-based practice, as this combines the best of both worlds.
For more information visit the website. The firm utilizes Rapidocs, DirectLaw's web-based document automation system to enable clients to complete online questionnaires which generate documents ready for lawyer review and editing. This is DirectLaw's third law firm launch in the State of Texas.
I am offering an on-line course on "unbundling legal services" with a particular focus on how to offer limited legal services over the Internet. "Limited legal services" is another name for "unbundled legal services."The course begins the week of June 1, 2009 and there will be 7 sessions over a 12 week period. By the end of the course participants will have developed a design for an "unbundled legal service" that can be integrated with their traditional law practice. Topics include: how to "unbundle" legal services by task or by issue; how to create and price an on-line service; marketing of on-line "unbundled legal services"; and ethical and regulatory requirements for offering "unbundled legal services."
EssentiaLegal, based in Atlanta, Georgia, and founded by Robert Arrington, Latif Oduolo-Owoo, & Michael Mason, three alumni from large law firm practices in Atlanta, is a new style law firm, part virtual and part physical that is designed to serve the broad middle class with unbundled legal services. The physical office is located in a shopping mall for easy access, but the virtual component is powered by our DirectLaw Service and enables the firm to serve clients throughout the state of Georgia. Clients can complete Questionnaires either on-line, or within the physical office, which results in the instant creation of the first draft of a document or form, ready for the lawyer's review and further modification. Clients have the option of meeting with an attorney at their offices or relating to the firm on purely virtual basis through the MyLegalAffairs application created within the web site by our DirectLaw Web Service. I believe that this "click and mortar" strategy will be ultimately more effective than a purely virtual strategy because clients have the option of face to face contact with their attorney. "Click and mortar" refers to a business model that has both on-line and off-line components.
Myrna Arroyo, a solo practitioner in located in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, who specializes in estate planning, has launched a virtual law firm site that offers wills, living trusts, and other estate planning documents bundled with legal advice for a fixed price. The site is designed to provide an alernative to web sites like LegacyWriter,Do Your Own Will, LegalZoom, and Wills-Online, which offer legal forms without any legal advice. None of these legal form web sites offer documents that are specific to the State of Louisiana because of the particular nature of Louisiana law, which is based on the French Civil Code. Users are able to complete an on-line questionnaire which generates a completed legal document, ready for lawyer review, analysis, and further customization. Web enabled document automation enables saves time in document creation, enabling Ms. Arroyo to provide legal advice with the document for a fixed price. The site is powered by Epoq's, DirectLaw Web Service.
