Slashdot Mirror
Lawsuit Claims LegalZoom Is Practicing Law Without a License
Bob the Super Hamste writes "Fortune has an interesting piece about a federal class action law suit against LegalZoom claiming that its software is illegally practicing law without a license. The law suit seeks to recover money from LegalZoom for every resident in Missouri who has used LegalZoom regardless of how satisfied the users were of the service. Currently Missouri law states that an individual who paid money to a non lawyer for legal services is entitled to sue the provider for 3 times the amount paid."
The statute was obviously intended to deal with fake lawyers - yes there are people who will brave the social opprobrium of claiming to be a lawyer in exchange for money. However, provided that the website doesn't itself produce wills, deeds or other legal instruments, it should be in the clear.
This is a grey area - the law could have benefits in preventing the automatic generation of, say, RIAA-type fishing expedition claim documents. It would be interesting if a real lawyer were to comment on the EULA issue; there is probably a good reason why it is excluded.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
A lawyer got burned is what happened.
Chances are there was a group of lawyers that sat around in an overly expensive office and drafted (read, photocopied) paperwork for six figure salaries. They then found a website that threatened to do everything they did for free. Now having lots of free time they decide to actually use their education and sue their competition out of existence.
Lesson: Never automate a lawyers or a congressman job. You can automate and outsource the entire rest of the country, but if you even look wrong at those professions you will be sued out of existence.
The precedent is this:
in 1978 the Missouri Supreme Court ... reviewed a case in which Missouri bar authorities sought to punish the sellers of a divorce kit that consisted of nothing but blank legal forms and instruction booklets for filling them out. The court ruled that merely marketing such materials did not amount to practicing law absent "personal advice as to legal remedies or the consequences of flowing therefrom."
A booklet instructing you how to fill out legal forms is not legal advice, according to that ruling. Neither then is software that instructs you on how to fill in the blanks on a computerized legal form.