LegalZoom has been beta testing a concept which links its marketing capabilities to a network of law firms that offer legal services under the LegalZoom brand. With some state bar associations accusing LegalZoom of the unauthorized practice of law, it might makes sense for the company to seek deeper alliances with networks of attorneys who are able to offer a full and ethically compliant legal service. Solos and small law firms, leveraging off the visibility and prominence of the LegalZoom brand, could reduce their marketing costs and enable these firms to better capture consumers who are part of the “latent legal market” on the Internet. It could be a win/win for both parties.
Unfortunately, linking the capital and management resources of profit-making organization with private law firms is almost impossible in the United States, given the regulatory framework that governs law practice. Unlike, the United Kingdom, which is in the process of deregulating the legal profession, enabling profit-making companies, from banks and insurance companies to retail chains like Tesco, to actually own a law firm, and/or split legal fees with a non-law firm, these practices in the US are strictly taboo.
In the US, law directories can charge a flat marketing fee for a listing, but sharing legal fees with a marketing organization can get you disbarred.
During the dot-com boom around 1999-2000, a company emerged by the name of AmeriCounsel that tried to create a hybrid organizational structure similar to the LegalZoom experiment. The company sought to enable a network of attorneys to offer legal services at a fixed and reasonable price and to mediate between the consumer and the law firm in terms of guaranteeing the quality of the legal services offered. The company failed during the dot-com bust for various reasons, including lack of financing, but on the way to failure, secured some opinions from state bar associations that blessed their model and provides a blue print for hybrid delivery systems which combine the expertise of a law firm with the marketing, management, and technological resources of a non-law firm.
One such opinion was issued by the Nassau County Bar Association New York State.
The Bar Association reasoned that the AmeriCounsel scheme was permissible because:
[S]ince AmeriCounsel does not charge attorneys any fee and since AmeriCounsel does not “recommend” or “promote” the use of any particular lawyer ’s services, it does not fall within the purview of DR 2-103(B) or (D). Rather, AmeriCounsel is a form of group advertising permitted by the Code of Professional Responsibility and by ethics opinions interpreting the Code.
In this model, AmeriCounsel provided technology and administrative services to link the client with the lawyer, but the law firm made no payment to AmeriCounsel. Instead, a separate administrative/technology fee was paid by the consumer to AmericCounsel for using the web site and gaining access to the lawyer. (This is not a practical scheme in today’s web environment, in my opinion), Moreover, AmeriCounsel did not choose the lawyer. The client was able to compare the credentials of different attorneys and choose their own lawyer. Thus no legal referral was involved, which would not be permitted in New York, as only an approved non-profit organization can make legal referrals.
In my opinion, this model, forced on AmeriCounsel, by the Rules of Professional Responsibility, is cumbersome, hard to implement, and was not economically viable for AmeriCounsel. Perhaps this was one of the causes of its failure.
Almost a decade later, companies that want to enter into this kind of hybrid relationship with lawyers, have to follow the same rule structure, as the ABA Model Rules of Professional Responsibility as the rules have not changed in any significant way. changed. It will be interesting to see whether the ABA Ethics 20/20 Commission, which was set up just last year, will address these issues at all.
Perhaps there should be a “safe harbor” that enables organization’s like LegalZoom to experiment with new patterns of legal service delivery that could operate for a limited period of time in a specific state, like California, The experience would be evaluated carefully as a basis for rule and policy change. The evaluation would be aimed to see if client’s interests are compromised in any way, and whether the delivered legal service is less expensive, without compromising the quality of legal service.
Instead of creating legal profession regulatory policies that are based on the legal profession’s idea about what is good for the consumer, policy could be based on real experience and facts. Experimentation is good. It leads to change, and in other industries improvement of methods and approaches over a period of time.
Of course, I don’t believe that this will ever happen in the US, at least not in my professional lifetime.
Copy, Credit, Meals
This is addressed to my professional actor friends, full members of the Screen Actors Guild, AFTRA, and Equity.
It is to say that I am tired of being invited by student directors to act in their videos, or films, for their benefit and for nothing. This is a huge step backward to the very beginnings of these esteemed organizations, back to the twenties and thirties. Student actors, go ahead. Professional actors, STOP!
Yes, we are entering a new era in the film making process. Yes, the old rules are a-changing. But no, what remains unchanged is the cold hard fact that we need to earn a fair amount of money to survive. SAG and AFTRA and AEA were conceived to ensure that this happens. But what has taken its place?
I am told that I may perform in an AEA condoned "Equity Waiver" theatrical production. That means that I have the opportunity to "practice my craft" for not much more than car fare.
I am told that I may perform in a SAG or AFTRA condoned "student production" to "practice my craft" for a copy of the result "for my reel". My reel has become an essential adjunct in the job-hunting process. Job hunting has become the premier industry in today’s Hollywood (and New York). Hundreds of websites have come into being, offering job hunting services for a price. And so, the poor actor’s pockets, bare due to the near impossibility of getting paid these days, is made even more bare by the new necessity to subscribe to these websites.
The dignity of the professional actor is severely threatened. The new image is that of a young actor, with pleading in his eyes, one hand out, and the other behind his back, to protect it, I guess. While the producer/director wields his traditional authoritarial stick over the actor, ensuring the continuance of a feudal system tolerated since the dark ages. And the middle men, the managers, the agents, the lawyers, and some teachers and casting directors, earn their living in dependence upon the actors lack of confidence, "teaching" said actors "new tricks".
Posted in ACTORS' & DIRECTORS' CORNER, COMMENTARY