After 40 years of leading the self-help law movement, Nolo, is being acquired by Internet Brands an advertising driven Internet company. Nolo was created by two frustrated legal aid lawyers, Charles (Ed) Sherman and Ralph (Jake) Warner, who wanted to figure out a way to help the thousands of consumers with their legal problems who could not afford an attorney and were turned away by legal aid because their incomes were too high.
Based in Berkeley, California, the center of the counter cultural revolution of the 1960’s, Nolo assembled a group of radical lawyers, editors, and writers who were determined to do something about a broken legal system where 90% of the US middle class were priced out of the legal system. Championing legal reforms that would make the U.S. justice system accessible to everyone, the company has seen these reforms become mainstream in the US.
Courts now offer their own automated self-help legal forms, legal aid agencies publish state-wide legal information web sites and also distribute automated legal forms, legal form web sites give away legal forms for free as a way to generate traffic, small claims court limits have been raised in many states, and lawyers are delivering "unbundled legal services" and creating virtual law firms, figuring out ways to deliver legal services online for a fixed and affordable fee.
Its ironic that Nolo is being acquired by Internet Brands, for an amount rumored to be in the range of $20,970,000, by an advertising company that is focused primarily on generating leads for law firms through their directories and advertising properties. How does self-help law fit into this business model?
The amount being paid is little more than one times revenue — not exactly a premium. Although, Nolo publishes Willmaker and several other excellent web-based legal software programs, it is still primarily a book publisher. In its hey day, before the Internet penetrated almost every household in America, Nolo self-help law books were the primary source for accurate do it yourself legal information and forms.
As the web expanded hundreds of legal information and legal form web sites also emerged, plus national brands such as LegalZoom. These web-based alternatives also provided legal solutions without the need to use a lawyer — the same need that Nolo was meeting. Except that instead of reading a 200-300 page book in order to get to a legal solution — web-based applications delivered a legal solution more efficiently, faster, and at less cost.
Nolo has migrated many of its legal forms online, too little and too late, and except for a few major products, non-automated forms. Here is another example of a print publisher whose business, despite the excellence of its product, has been eroded by the Internet.
It is well known that Nolo’s book business actually declined during this recession and growth has been flat. The fastest growing area of Nolo’s business is their Lawyer Directory. This is ironic for a company that prided itself in developing self-help legal solutions that don’t require the assistance of an attorney.
The challenge for Internet Brands will be to figure out how to unlock the assets buried within Nolo’s vast collection of self-help law books and turn these assets into web-based applications that can be distributed over the Internet. It remains to be seen whether the quality of Nolo’s self-help legal content will deteriorate under the management of an advertising-driven company that measures results in page views and unique visitors.
Internet Brands, previously a public company, was recently taken private private when it was acquired by Hellman & Friedman, a private equity firm, based in San Francisco, in December, 2010. Internet Brands has acquired over 70 vertical web sites in areas ranging from travel to cars to real estate. Internet Brands derives more than 70% of its revenues from advertising on its portfolio of web sites.
In December, 2010 Internet Brands also acquired ALLLAW.com , a consumer legal information portal and AttorneyLocate – an Attorney Directory Service. Both of these web sites are relatively weak properties. Compete.com shows that in March, 2011 Nolo had 498,769 unique visitors ( an 8% decline for the year), ALLLAW.com had 190,069 unique visitors, (for the of March, 2011); AttorneyLocate.com was especially weak with only 18,277 unique visitors (for the month of March, 2011). Internet Brands also owns ExpertHub, which in turn manages web sites in verticals markets such as dentists, plastic surgery, accountants, tummy tuck, and of course lawyers. The ExpertHub site for lawyers only generates 96,289 unique visitors a month (March, 2011), so I wonder if that level of traffic is high enough to support their advertising rates.
There is irony in the fact that LegalZoom, a company that prides itself on offering legal solutions from a non-law firm generates more traffic than any of the sites mentioned above at 889,762 unique visitors in March, 2011, trailing only Findlaw and Lawyers.com, (both of which offer similar services as the Internet Brands properties). With the traffic that LegalZoom gets, maybe LegalZoom should consider creating their own lawyers directory for consumers who need just a bit of legal advice to go with their forms to keep them on the right track? I wonder what solos and small law firms would think if LegalZoom moved in that direction?.
It will be interesting to see how Internet Brands integrates these legal properties to leverage the assets in each acquisition as its tries to compete with the likes of Findlaw and Lawyers.com . It will also be interesting to see whether the quality of Nolo’s self help legal content deteriorates under the management of an advertising company that measures results in impressions, clicks, and unique visitors. If Jake Warner, the present CEO stays involved, I am sure the quality of Nolo’s products will remain "top of class."
It’s an odd mix, –the best in class self-help legal book publisher with an excellent reputation, with some less than best in class lawyer directories and a legal information web site. Only time will tell whether this combination will work. (Although Internet Brands may intend to run each of these properties as separate brands, which would help Nolo maintain the quality of it self help legal content).
ANN O’NEILL, LOUISE ROUG, GINA PICCALO
Wikipedia would consider the LA Times to be a “reliable source” in their category “Biographies of Living People”. After all, they were the only ones attending the trial to report on it. So let’s analyze the newspaper’s report, forensically, for the sake of the record, just to investigate whether they are reliable. This is what I wrote immediately after the news appeared:
March 13, 2001
These were the low-lifes that the Los Angeles Times was responsible for concocting this story, although only Roug covered our trial.
The press seems to maintain an unholy alliance with celebrities, probably because they are the source of countless future interviews and collaborative undertakings of mutual benefit, and their unfortunate spouses are not. And as for the general public, they would really prefer not to know any bad things going on in the lives of their favorites, which is understandable, but neither should they be misinformed with celebrity white-washing by the media.
Because I wanted the press to be present at the trials to report on the truth of what was going on for the all important reason that my reputation was at stake, I was glad to meet up front with Louise Roug, sent by the Times. I took her out for lunch. I wanted to know where she was coming from, I wanted to free up her mind in case it was set already. I discovered that she’s full-blooded Danish, as was my mother. We got on fine, and I thought I had an ally in truth. She attended for several days, and had access to the facts.
I had been living for two years under the effects of the stunningly awful reports in the press and television media of what a cad I had been, and I was defending Lynn and my kids by not speaking up. Now the truth was about to be revealed, under oath at trial. What better way for me to clear my name. And to do this, unavoidably without a lawyer, I thought at least would attract attention. The air would be cleared, and I could get on with my life. She attended for several days, and had enough of the facts to create a real story. (As a side note, interesting that not one member of the public dropped by to take a look over the entire ten days of trial.)
Instead, to my utter astonishment, she presented this biased and misrepresented account against me in the service of celebrity Lynn, and to please her editors in support, I now see, of her ambition to become a serious journalist with a foreign posting (at this time, unbelievably, she’s reporting for them from Iraq!). Her publicized view of me still sticks as part of the false view held by Lynn’s fan club. At least that was true until now, where I have a chance to reveal the smoke and mirrors surrounding the case, and provide context with this blawg. If, that is, people will read it.
The account of this trial, of course, belonged on the Business page or the News pages where other trials are reported for the enlightenment of serious readers, not the Entertainments page.
I filed this document with all of its ersatz dirty laundry as part of my Appeal. And it’s on the public record, so that other media, like CNN, could read it.
Bear in mind that much of the detail is for the benefit of others contemplating divorce, to correct the serious smear to my reputation, and to show what the courts can do to you if you are not represented. I don’t think anyone else has the stomach to do this.
I risk revealing the details of how they play dirty with pro per defendants. They may be emulated by opposing professional attorneys, but I know that their law-schools already taught them the same tricks.
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