Category: Advocates

How do we get people help that they can use easily, transparently, and with satisfaction?

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Legal Barbershop

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Another offline idea for Access to Justice (thanks to Briane for the mention!) — this time being piloted by attorney Donald Howard in New Britain, Connecticut. The Connecticut Tribune reports on how he has opened a barbershop inside of his legal office, as a hybrid-business to serve more people’s legal needs.  He cuts their hair & has his ears open for legal problems, which he can then follow up with.  It seems to be recently opened — I want to hear the experiences that are coming out of it.

It seems to take the idea of Legal Force (combo bookstore/legal concierge) and tweak it to a context (the barbershop) where people are already talking about their day-to-day lives and problems.  I see potential here — that people can be given legal diagnoses & resources before they realize they have a “Lawyer A-ha Moment” and reach out to a lawyer themselves.

From the Facebook page, it’s not clear how much law is going on at Legal Cuts, versus just haircuts — but the model seems to be a great inspiration for more, new models of legal services.

Barbershop-Law Office Combo On Cusp Of ‘Hybrid Business’ Trend

By DOUGLAS S. MALAN

Donald Howard

Donald Howard

Donald E. Howard II sees his new business venture as a natural combination: Everybody needs to get their hair cut and lots of people like to talk about their troubles at the barbershop.

So the New Britain attorney decided to open Legal Cuts, a legal-themed barbershop on West Main Street that also happens to be home to Howard’s law office, which is in the back of the building. He’s been open since early April and caters to people with all types of legal issues.

“I thought it was the perfect marriage,” said Howard. “People could feel comfortable in this environment and feel they can trust the lawyer. I want to make sure legal services are available to these people” who may be intimidated by walking into a traditional law office.

Howard’s new venture earned a mention on the ABA Journal website, as well as in an article on Findlaw.com that discussed a trend toward “hybrid businesses” launched by lawyers. The article’s author, attorney William Peacock, gave a thumbs-up to the concept.

“It really is intimidating for a client to go into a stuffy attorney’s office, while some pompous guy sits behind a massive desk in a $5,000 suit, and tells you that he wants a $3,000 retainer for your relatively simple case,” Peacock wrote. “If you can break that barrier, make yourself approachable, and calm the nerves of the client, developing that client-attorney relationship of trust will be much easier.”

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With his business still getting off the ground, Howard spends his days in Rockville Superior Court as a clerk and then checks in on his barbershop/law office three or four times a week. People who inquire about legal services when he’s not around are encouraged to leave their information and Howard returns their call. A whiteboard listing his flat-fee legal services for representation in DUIs, pardons and uncontested divorces are readily available at Legal Cuts along with his business cards.

“I’m still a struggling new attorney and in this economy, you have to step outside the box — and burn the box,” he said. “I believe the barbershop is the epicenter of the community. People can come in here and play checkers or chess and get to know their surroundings.”

Howard said he got the idea for Legal Cuts from a television show after seeing a California lawyer who offers legal services in a coffeehouse that is aptly named the Legal Grind. Howard decided on a barbershop because he took courses to become a licensed barber in Chicago and then cut hair during his undergraduate and graduate school days at Mississippi State University.

Moving around the country with his wife, who is in the Air National Guard, Howard earned a law degree from the University of Wyoming and served as a barber’s apprentice in Wyoming and Georgia before moving to Connecticut. Last February, he passed the Connecticut bar exam and started clerking in the state courthouse.

“I’ve handled some small claims, personal injury and criminal matters so far,” Howard said. While clerking, he’s trying to figure out what areas of the law interest him most. He’s leaning toward a career as a criminal defense and personal injury lawyer.

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FlyRights: Mobile Discrimination Reporting

The SikhCoalition has put together an ingenious app out to crowdsource reports of discrimination at airports and on airlines. If the government and companies won’t release information about how many complaints they have received, then why not ask people to report their complaints themselves?

The app lets a person report an incident as soon as it happens, and the report will be filed with the TSA & the DHS — and it will also allow others to maintain counts of how many incidents actually occur.

Open Law Lab - FlyRights 2 Open Law Lab - FlyRights

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The Fate of Legal Clinics

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A short cartoon I made while listening to Professor Nora Engstrom’s talk on Legal Clinics & attorney advertising at Stanford Law School last month.

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Advocates Ideabook

An Angie’s List for Lawyers

I have heard from a few people that they want an Angie’s List for Lawyers — a service they are willing to pay for, to get quality, real, vetted reviews of lawyers in the area.  I decided to seek out some user research, from blog posts and other Internet discussions, to see what this ‘Angie’s List for Lawyers’ discourse is all about.

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Here are some queries on Angie’s List itself.

Speaking as someone who logged in today to try to find an attorney, I see this category as one that’s exactly what I have my Angie’s List membership for:

1. It’s important that I find a good one
2. I’m not an expert enough to know myself who is a good one
3. The industry is full of advertisements and misinformation
4. I wish I knew what experiences other people have had

This points out the scope of the need.  Some users find it very hard to navigate the (limited) information available about attorneys online and in other communications.  They want to hear recommendations of others.  They want to make a good investment — and feel that the choice is a very important one — but fear going down a wrong path.  Importantly, they (or at least this user) is aware of the limits of their knowledge about law, and want to defer to those who have more expertise.

Some more discussion from another user on the site:

I was truly confused as to why Angies List does not provide a category for legal professionals. I was thinking of signing up because I needed a good lawyer and when I noticed that they dont provide such a category, I called them. They claim that they do not want to list attorneys because the services provided by attorneys cannot be effectively rated. I highly disagreed. People go to attorneys for specific help (i.e. file for bankruptcy, real estate closings, divorces, etc.) and the services that the attorney provides to the person (i.e. timeliness, cost, professionalism, promises, knowledge, etc.) can easily be rated. I am not going to pay a monthly fee for this service if it doesnt include all areas that someone needs help with. What I mean is, whats the point for paying a monthly fee for this site if I could find a plumber but need to pay another site to find an attorney. It should be all in one site. Really, there reasons for not having attorneys make no sense, and they should be added.

This shows the resistance of Angie’s List to jump into legal service ratings.  Obviously there are some legal and quality dynamics behind the scenes, and Angie’s List feels it’s better not to take on the risks and difficulties of rating lawyers.  But the user need is still there…

Another quote from the same site.

I think rating attorneys would be a very valuable service. I’m a middle aged woman that has many young adults come to me for advice. When I’m asked how they can find a good attorney I just hang my head and sadly tell them that they have to talk around. Hopefully they can get a free interview. This has not always been good advice and is not always possible depending upon their situation. If there was a resource to go to where an individual could read about previous experiences of the services provided by an attorney, it would be a great asset. In my mind, Angie’s List is a prime place for this kind of referral

And another, scouting out what a legal problem situation looks like…

Legal services are one of those things:

(1) that you use only occasionally,

(2) that you’ve GOT to get good consumer information about beforehand to avoid disaster, and

(3) that it’s almost impossible to research effectively without a big network of family, friends, and colleagues.

In other words, it’s perfect for Angie’s List!

I got lucky a few weeks ago, finding an attorney to help an elderly friend with a housing problem, but I’ll be needing a completely different kind of lawyer in a few months for a house sale – so here’s hoping Angie’s List gets this category up and running FAST.

Here is some pushback from another poster on the same site — that makes some points on why reviews are hard and may be misleading — and so there should not be an Angie’s List style of referral.

It is difficult to rate attorneys because not only are there a lot of them, but there are as many specialties as there in the medical field. That said, it’s not that it can’t be done or that reviews don’t exist. Most County Bar Associations, such as Dallas County Bar Association, will have an Attorney Referral Program. The good part about it is that they will set you up with an attorney, and for $20 (unless it’s changed), you get 30 minutes of an attorney’s time. Sometimes that is all you need, sometimes you will decide to work with that attorney, sometimes that attorney will know a colleague who will be a better fit, or you can go back to the Bar Association and ask for another referral. This is a low risk way to get started.

Another difficulty with rating attorneys is that they can be rated on several aspects including legal expertise, absence of Bar complaints, bedside manner, how their practice is set up, how many “wins”, etc. Sometimes a non-lawyer isn’t even sure what kind of lawyer they need and may be barking up the wrong attorney tree, so to speak. (Another good reason to contact the county’s Bar Association where you live or where the disputed transaction/conduct took place. Anyone rating a lawyer, like other ratings here, will be doing so as much on subjective expections and win/loss rather than the true compentency and professionalism of the attorney. If I need a trial lawyer to take my case to trial, I’d be less concerned about his bedside manner and more with how he/she does in the court room. (A bit like how I don’t care how nice my surgeon is as long as he/she is the best cutter in the field.) However, if I need a tax lawyer, family lawyer, or estate lawyer, for example, my relationship with the lawyer may require more contact, and I would want to know not only about competency, reputation, ethics, costs, but also whether there is a fit, I feel comfortable, I trust I will be dealt with in a manner to which clients are entitled, among other things. These factors can all vary depending on whether the firm is small, medium or large.

It is best, if possible, to meet with several attorneys. There are a number of ratings sites on the web, but there is not one single site of which I’m aware that can truly encompass all aspects of whether an attorney is right for you. However, looking at these various sites can be a good start of what to look for and where to go. For any name you find or get, you will want to go to the website of State Bar of Texas (or whatever state is involved) and check to see that the lawyer and/or the law firm is in good standing. There’s more, but that’s a quick overview.

Interesting about this last quote: though the user is writing saying that there should NOT be a review site for lawyers, in the 2nd to last paragraph, s/he seems to lay out a set of factors that a Lawyer Rating site could be compiling and creating a wonderful, accurate, reliable rating score for a lawyer.  It could be an adjustable rating, based on the size of the practice, the type of practice, and the type of case.

Out of these user needs, an outline of a product may be coming together — not exactly like Angie’s List — but accomplishing ‘the trusted reviews of expert professional’ that are so in demand…

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Legal Force: for Main Street law

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Usable law design from Legal Force, in the quick snapshot handouts it provides passersby at it store in Palo Alto.

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Apps to Manage Lawyers

Open Law Lab - viewabill - app to manage lawyer

Here’s an article by Jennifer Smith in the Wall Street Journal on new crops of apps that help clients find and monitor lawyers.  It mentions Viewabill (tracking how much their lawyers are charging them, in real-time); Rocket Lawyer’s mobile app (create basic legal documents and buy plans for low-cost access to advice); Attorney Proz (lists area lawyers, who have paid to be listed); Ask a Lawyer (ask lawyers in Kalamzoo about basic legal questions and get free answers to your e-mail); and soon to be a LegalZoom app.

Now that people use apps to bank, order food and even monitor eBay auction bids, it was only a matter of time before they called in the lawyers.

Appearing in app stores are programs to help people keep track of their attorneys’ bills, draft legal documents and locate nearby lawyers.

Attorneys are doing more work on smartphones and tablets, and they have a whole host of apps at their disposal to help look up case law, track client calls and even assist with depositions and jury selection.

But until recently, few options existed for clients who wished to track cases or seek advice using mobile devices. This new crop of apps aims to add transparency, and a measure of convenience, to the process.

One new app, Viewabill, lets people track how much their lawyers are charging them in real-time. The idea is to head off sticker shock when business owners and company lawyers open up their monthly bills.

The app acts as kind of a client nanny-cam. It captures information as law firms enter it into their billing systems and transmits it to clients’ mobiles and desktops. Users select how often they want to get updates, set alerts pegged to certain dollar thresholds and can mark questionable items. The app can also be used to track hours logged by accountants and other professional service providers.

The app is now being used by a handful of companies and law firms on a beta basis, with a wider launch planned this month, said Florida-based entrepreneur David Schottenstein, who co-founded the enterprise with an attorney friend, Robbie Friedman. Firms would pay an annual cost of $25 to $40 per matter, depending on volume, or $25,000 for unlimited use, said Mr. Schottenstein.

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“It helps them to understand what we do,” said Brian Baker, a bankruptcy lawyer at Ravin Greenberg LLC in New Jersey, which has been testing the app.

Errol Feldman, general counsel for JPay Inc., a Florida company that provides payment transfers and other services to inmates at corrections facilities, has been using Viewabill to make sure firms working to resolve contract disputes do so in a timely fashion.

Legal consultant Susan Hackett said the app was the latest example of a push for greater communication between lawyers and clients, who increasingly want more involvement in the work they assign to outside law firms.

Some companies with big in-house legal departments have already invested in software programs that let clients track the progress of legal matters or monitor law firm bills from their desktop computers. Such systems don’t come cheap, and not many clients use them yet—fewer than 20% of general counsel, according to a 2011 poll by the Association of Corporate Counsel.

Not all law firms may welcome the additional element of client control on the legal side of things. For Viewabill to work, for instance, lawyers have to enter their hours in a timely fashion.

“These technologies may scare people,” Ms. Hackett said. “But they are all productive parts of the march towards clients and lawyers having conversations in real time.”

This month online legal services company Rocket Lawyer Inc. is debuting a mobile app tailored to its customer base: consumers and small business owners who log on to the site to create basic legal documents or buy plans that provide low-cost access to legal advice.

Charley Moore, Rocket Lawyer’s founder and executive chairman, said more site traffic is coming from tablets and smartphones these days, reflecting his customers’ increasingly mobile bent. Many are small business owners who spend much of their time on the road, he said.

“Their office is their dashboard, so we have to deliver the tools,” Mr. Moore said.

Customers can use the app to create a non-disclosure agreement (more forms will soon be available) or modify existing documents they have already created. The app itself is free, and users can access some functions gratis.

Users can also locate nearby attorneys from Rocket Lawyer’s network—the app is integrated with Google GOOG +0.53% Maps—and punch in basic legal questions, although the reply, which is supposed to arrive within one business day, may not be swift as some might hope.

A handful of other apps offer similar services. Attorney Proz also lists area lawyers, who pay to be included. Ask a Lawyer, an app linked to Kalamazoo, Mich., law firm Willis Law, also offers free answers to basic legal questions, with replies sent to users’ email addresses.

Not to be outdone, online legal services company LegalZoom.com Inc., a Rocket Lawyer competitor, also has an app in the works, a company spokeswoman said.

A version of this article appeared March 11, 2013, on page B5 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Apps Help Find Lawyers, And Keep an Eye on Them.