The U.S. has lots and lots of un-and under-employed lawyers. The U.S. also has lots of people who have legal problems that they can’t afford to spend a lot of money on. In the latest application of computer matching, buyers and sellers can get together on a site called Shpoonkle, the brain child of Robert Niznik, who is just finishing at New York Law School. Here is the story in the Chronicle.
Predictably, the legal establishment is up in arms. One lawyer is quoted as saying, “Any lawyer who signs up for this service should be immediately disbarred, then tarred and feathered, then publicly humiliated.” Seems like cruel and unusual punishment just for entering into a professional-services contract.
New forms of competition are usually denounced as dangerous and unethical by those already doing well in the approved forms.
They are just worried that more people will discover that legal advice is rather overpriced. Things like that website will only highlight that fact more and lead to more affordable rates. With the amount of lawyers we have now a days the prices should be coming down rather then going up.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWere lawyers a commodity, you would be absolutely correct. Skill, knowledge and work ethic vary greatly within the legal community. For the most part, you get what you pay for.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhile I do not know anything about Shpoonkle, as a lawyer I think matching clients and lawyers more efficiently is a great idea, especially matching underserved persons with underutilized lawyers. In fact, increasing access to legal services is part of the aspirational responsibilities of lawyers in the Rules of Professional Conduct. If Shpoonkle is a mechanism that facilitates this, consistent with the ethical rules that lawyers are subject to, then it is certainly worth a good look. These ethical rules imposed on lawyers include, for example, competence (including state-by-state competence and disciplinary rules), confidentiality, conflict of interest rules, false advertising rules, misconduct rules and unauthorized practice of law rules.
Lawyers I know are not particularly afraid of competition, or with the cost of "commodity" legal work falling due to greater efficiency and abundance of lawyers, but rather they are more concerned about the risk of incompetent, unethical, uncivil lawyers jeopardizing the delicate system of relatively predictable laws and enforcement of rights and remedies.
By the same token I don't think anyone should be surprised or appalled that a lawyer may seek to develop and offer skills that are in relatively higher demand, and charge a market rate for them. Lawyers, like other entrepreneurs, must continually prove their "value proposition" to clients and prospective clients, to at least as great an extent as in any other trade, business or profession. I think it is telling that virtually all consumers of legal services, especially high-cost legal services, are voluntary, "private pay" customers.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI believe the term is "rent seeking".
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThis looks like just the sort of thing the current administration needs to stop before it gets started. I can't imagine that there isn't already a program modeled on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act waiting in the legislative wings for legal services. I mean, how many poor people can afford the legal services necessary to put them on even footing with the 1%? An unfunded mandate to expand the role of public defenders' offices to include all legal services would only be fair. That way free enterprise won't get out of hand and run amok.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseA lot of legal work is low knowledge, low experience work. We should be saving the high priced guys for the high knowledge, high experience work,
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThere was a great discussion in a similar vein in the most recent Ricochet Law Talk podcast (with John Yoo and Richard Epstein): The ABA has strong-armed the states into requiring a lawyer to execute nearly every little piece of legal documentation. Stuff that skilled paralegals could be doing at a much lower overall cost.Sites like Legal Zoom have been edging toward a solution to this problem.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThis service disintermediates the legal market and should result in lower costs and better competition. Bravo!
Can we publicly humiliate, tar and feather, and disbarr the lawyer quoted in the article for his disapproval of a service that benefits both consumers and the overabundance of underemployed lawyers in the country? Of course an established, overpaid lawyer hates the idea of this service!! It threatens his overabundant and probably underserved income. And by in large, I have found the old axiom of "you get what you pay for" to be inaccurate. There are many skilled and ethical people of all trades who believe in making a living wage by charging fair prices and maintaining reasonable overhead. I don't "get what I pay for" when part of the fee I'm charged goes to carefully cultivated snob appeal, expensive office furniture and artwork, and elaborate corporate parties. I hope that Shpoonkle enjoys great success!
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