This is another consequence of the fact that that there is an oversupply of lawyers — too many lawyers chasing after a limited amount of legal work.

I can see how a lawyer with a very focused specialty could use an auction site to reach out to clients, without giving much price concession, because they don’t have to as their skills are sufficiently unique that the number of providers are limited in the specialty area.

So for example, in a jurisdiction where there are only 2 or 3 lawyers who specialize in preparing QDRO orders, it would make sense for all of the providers in the specialty area to agree on minimum pricing and aim to divide up the work rather than compete on price with each other. The nature of the legal work is so local and and relatively small scale, that is is probably beyond the reach of any federal prohibitions on price fixing. If consumers don’t like the minimum pricing that is offered they could try and do it themselves, which would be next to impossible when the legal work to be done is complex, nuanced, and intricate.

This work is being lost to the legal profession, as non-lawyer providers rush in to fill a gap as lawyers seek more complex and value-added work where their skillscanmake a contribution.

It happens all of the time. People come up to you at events, parties, church or get togethers and ask for advice. Years ago the response was, “call my secretary and make an appointment next week and we’ll sit down and talk about it.” Lawyers, paralegals and other call me often and ask for guides, pleading forms or documents. Give it to them. If they hire you it is because they need execution.

You win or lose in the legal business environment depending on your reputation in regard to execution. You are the lawyer that can make things happen. (I do not mean win or lose, but maneuver through the process).

That is the biggest problem for recent law grads. All they are at this early point in their career are a bunch of worthless advice givers. (Sorry, I do not mean that to sound so harsh as I learned this over the years the hard way myself). What I mean to say is they have little or no training in execution so they fall back on the one thing they know from law school and it happens to be what nobody today wants to pay much money to hear.

What law schools did not train them to do is execute a plan or a strategy based on their practice area. I am not sure it is even possible law schools to do this. It is some of the reason lawyers need places like SPU.

So, you go to law school to learn all of the skills nobody wants to pay you for in a modern (information is free) society.

Information, advice, forms, etc. are good for one thing – marketing. You can think of law school as your marketing or advertising costs.

That is the reason I speak on my subject, write on my subject, share whatever anybody wants. Because they will hire me not because I know more, but because they need someone that can execute for them.

My overboard advice to all of the wannabe online lawyers (and even those that are the more bricks and mortar variety as well) is turn the modeling software around and let the public model it and print it off themselves for free, at their whim, without paying you a bit of lip service. Do not take a dime for it and do not do any work except to provide the system. Add videos, audio, PDFs, explaining everything. It is the Google model (read the book “FREE”, for example). It is this information rich marketing you need.

Most will still pay you to execute what they want or need to have happen. Those that do not, at least you have helped them in a non-exploitative way by showing your expertise. The cost to do so was merely marginal (if you do not calculate in your law school tuition).

In fact, the more information the better. It is the overload that lets them know they need a lawyer to help them execute what they want or need. You can say don’t do it alone, but giving the information lets them understand it might not be the best idea. It is ignorance that lets people believe there is no value in hiring a lawyer to execute. Like new lawyers they confuse a little knowledge with competency in executing a plan or strategy. A lot of information changes that without even challenging them.

People do not want to walk into divorce court alone, for example. They do not want to execute a will alone for another example.. There are somethings they cannot do in Texas, for example, like probate. Anybody can think to ask if the cop’s speed gun was properly calibrated at Court. It is how you get it to court, get it before the judge and make it happen that they need help with doing.

Although stated rather crudely, wasn’t the point Steve Miller was trying to express years ago concerning the need for hand-holding in divorce matters in Florida. He got roundly criticized for it. See the video here and judge for yourself.

http://youtu.be/JXiJQVyLelM

So, quit trying to hoard information or pretend there is a scarcity of it. In terms of broad information these days, there is nothing that a law graduate knows, in most practice areas, that the average person cannot find out on Google, given enough time and effort.

The problem is, and law is slow to catch up, is that in the old days we created a fake scarcity of information and advice so we could charge for it. That is not true anymore.

We use to say that talk is cheap. Well, in this technology age, information, case law, legal principals and advice are are all cheap. They are all easy to give and easy to find. What is expensive is somebody who can effectively bring all of the diverse pieces together and execute the plan or the legal strategy. Someone that can walk someone though the troubled waters.

I agree that it’s a consumer-driven trend and therefore, there’s not much that we as a profession can do to stop it. We can ignore it and doing so will let the online legal service companies take control of that huge untapped market for legal services. Right now my opinion is that attorneys can find a way to meet the needs of the consumers who what the cheap online legal services while also working on larger, more complex matters with clients who understand the value of the attorney’s work and whose matters require more full-service representation. I would advocate for a balance of the cheap and the regular attorney fees services. Unbundling legal services for cheap is not going to sustain a practice without a large number of clients and it’s not appropriate for every practice area or every client’s needs. So I don’t see this as the future of all legal services. But I do think that there are ways that we can do a better job of pulling in this work for ourselves rather than outsourcing it to these bidding sites or networks who take a cut, whether in a listing fee or by the fact that the attorney’s profile is providing their site with content and upping that company’s SEO. The attorney should put that content on their own site and raising their own SEO to pull in clients themselves for both the affordable unbundled rates and the full-service fees.

The site is free and the consumer is more protected by the safeguards in place than arbitrary selection of an attorney from an advertisement. The risk to the client is negligible as compared to a consumer walking into a random attorney’s office they saw posted on the side of a bus. When a consumer goes into an attorney’s office, they have no safety net other than being savvy enough to ask or check that attorneys standing with the bar.

Shpoonkle provides that service for the consumer. Additionally, we advise our members to check again when meeting the attorney to make sure that licensure is still in good standing. We are using the site for advocacy and education to enable clients to find more affordable legal solutions and also helping lawyers to expand their practice.

We have almost 2000 attorneys as members on our site in less than ninety days. Many of the attorneys are from very reputable and established firms and/or successful solo practioners. One lawyer member stated: ” that many people feel frightened of the entire legal process, and worry that sometimes they just cannot afford to hire an attorney or get help. They often are paralyzed and do nothing and the situation worsens. If nothing else Shpoonkle educates consumers that there is help out there for them.” Another attorney member stated ” that many people try to do the legal work themselves, and although the forms they get online may be correct, without an attorney to tell them the legal ramifications of that form – the results can often be disastrous.” Shpoonkle is not competing for the DIY crowd, we are actually trying to enable more people to get the legal help they need, just at a price they can afford. In regard to the quote: ” There will always be buyers of Mercedes and BMWs no matter how many manufacturers of Hyundais come to market” is very true, but how many buyers of those Mercedes and BMW’s don’t negotiate a better price with the dealer so they don’t pay sticker? if you bargain that BMW price down are you getting less value or quality or just being a smart consumer?

The bond between the attorney remains intact, in fact it seems heightened by this process as the consumer feels that the attorney is more flexible and willing to work with them not only on the legal issue but with them as a person (economics or lack thereof).

Before folks jump to conclusions, it is best to get all the facts. Shpoonkle may not be a good fit for everyone, but we are keeping privacy intact on the site, our members are professional reputable and LICENSED attorneys and firms, and we are not a referral or lead service. Shpoonkle is helping a lot of people and after all isn’t that what the law profession is supposed to do?

IF (and it is a big IF) the other issues you mention – confidentiality and inadvertent waiver – or maybe acknowledgment of waiver just for the limited information provided – are addressed properly, someone is eventually going to come up with the right formula and position it in a way that there will finally be a breakthrough on this model.

I just don’t know who. I just don’t know when. But the time is approaching because of the reasons stated above. And it still leaves me queasy…

The same applies to legal services. As you point out, bidding is nothing new, and indeed, sophisticated clients conduct “bids” for services in the form of RFPs. The reason that RFPs work for large firm matters is that the buyer is seeking something “customized” – just as the ebay buyer looking for a Victrola. RFPs won’t work for wills or trusts or trusts or LLC services unless consumers can procure those services via auction for next to nothing – because otherwise, the added cost of writing the bid and waiting for a response isn’t worth it. And as Rachel points out, lawyers are not going to work for next to nothing (nor should they). Because auction sites depend on lots of buyers and sellers, if you can’t bring match the supply of potential clients and lawyers, the system will fail.
Finally, I personally see too many potential problems with these services – like disclosure of confidential information and inadvertent waiver of privilege – that pose yet another barrier to entry. If the business model made sense, changing confidentiality rules might make sense, but here, I don’t think it’s a model that is viable.
None of this is intended to suggest that I oppose competition. We lawyers are the beneficiaries of competition in the computerized legal research market and in the tech industry – and we cannot expect to remain immune from competition, nor should be try to since it impedes access to law. But we are fast reaching a point where consumers have enough information about rates and prices and services online that they can find an affordable provider without resorting to auction.