Most legal problems are fairly common, so you shouldn’t have to fork over thousands of dollars in legal fees.
[A] Los Angeles-based startup wants to give you a free, online pre-consultation about your legal issues before you ever call a lawyer or go to a lawyer’s office. MyRight is a graduate of Los Angeles incubator, StartEngine and is the brainchild of law students, Michael Niu and Nikhil Jhunjhnuwala.
The site does what it says on the tin — it provides non-lawyers with the tools to solve their own legal problems.”We both found that lawyers spent a huge amount of their time answering and asking the same questions when new clients came into their offices,” said Niu. “We thought there must be a better way to automate this process.”
It's amazing how law students know all there is about the practice of law, considering the din about how law students learn nothing about the practice of law. Apparently, the whine stops when the marketing begins.
Despite the typical silly claims, most notably that myRight is set to compete with Avvo Answers, its hook bends a different way.
Got a legal issue? The site will lead you through a series of simple questions that get to the heart of the complaint. For instance, if it’s a housing query about a security deposit, it might ask you simple questions like, “Have you asked your landlord for a refund?” Throughout the process, you’ll be provided with relevant and simple information.
The image it raises reminds me of Windows' troubleshooter screens, asking basic and annoying questions ("Is your computer plugged in?") for those who can't figure out how to solve a problem without the most simplistic help.
But if the information is reasonably accurate, this may work. There are a great many people who haven't got a clue whether they have a legal matter to pursue, and operate either out of ignorance, based on myths or what the lady on the corner told them. An enormous amount of unproductive legal time could be avoided, saving both potential clients and lawyers time and expense, by weeding out those people either need legal help or don't before they meet with a lawyer.
Based on the questions on Avvo Answers and the dreaded emails from "potential clients" seeking free advice, there is a huge gap in the many people's understanding of the law that is in desperate need of filling. For those who give free consultations, hour upon hour is lost to meeting destined to go nowhere, with angry people who demand that lawyers fix whatever perceived problems exist despite their being in the wrong or having no basis for suit. The idea of educating people before they call, saving them the angst and the lawyer the time, has some merit.
The initial catch is that the concept is only as good as the quality and clarity of the weeding process.
“People think the law is complicated, but most people would be able to make much better decisions if they simply knew the basics and whether talking to a lawyer is a good decision,” Niu said. In future, he told me, lawyers will use the site’s proprietary CMS to build their own helpful step-by-step guides on a variety of legal topics.
Well, the law is complicated, which is why they build law schools and courtrooms. On the other hand, there are basic limitations that, if carefully conceived, can serve to illuminate the process for clients and help them to realize what they should, or should not, do. The problem is that myRight expects lawyers to to "build their own helpful step-by-step guides."
The mantra in Field of Dreams was "if you build it, they will come." Niu wants someone else to build it, and that opens the door to a bunch of problems. First, what if they don't? Second, what if they do, but do it wrong? It's not like two law students would have a clue whether some lawyer's guide is accurate. Third, given that the motivation of lawyers who become embroiled in these scheme is to get clients to pay them money, is it reasonable to expect guides to be geared toward enlightening people or toward convincing them to retain the lawyer who crafted the guide? What is missing is any means of assuring the efficacy of the process, which is a huge problem.
And even if the guides work, where does it go from there? While the guide concept could prove useful, the business model places myRight in the middle of the same, old, useless lead-generation scheme, a niche filled with dozens of marketers who try to skim a bit off the top at the expense of desperate and foolish lawyers.
The company plans to make money by asking lawyers to pre-pay for leads. If a legal complaint is too complicated, you may need to seek additional, expert guidance. The idea is that lawyers will be able to connect with these users through the site.
Because there aren't enough cold-calls to law offices promising wealth and success if only they pre-pay for leads. You know, the scam caller who asks if you can handle more DUI cases because they have clients desperately seeking lawyers? Do we really need another person to hang up on?
And for the potential client who thinks only about a way to find cheap lawyer, the hidden risks remain.
To the extent myRight could serve both lawyer and client with its troubleshooter concept, I'm all for it. But I have some trouble believing they can pull it off given their expectation that lawyers are going rush to build their business for them by doing the legwork needed, and doing it sufficiently well not to be dangerous or scummy.
Yet, the concept will be captive to the same old lead-generation scheme that is already being used in a scientific experiment to empirically determine how many lawyers are clueless. Adding another to the mix will neither improve the scheme nor expand the pool, as even lawyers eventually realize that they are not related to a Nigerian prince and internet generated "leads" are worthless.
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Source: http://blog.simplejustice.us/2012/10/01/myright-may-be-halfright.aspx?ref=rss
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