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Lawsuit Claims LegalZoom Is Practicing Law Without a License

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday June 30, 2011 @03:37AM from the how-quickly-can-a-computer-finish-law-school? dept.

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."

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Re:As long as they sue the software itself by _0xd0ad · 2011-06-30 05:25 · Score: 5, Informative

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.