Does Google Want To Be Our Lawyer?

Google has indirectly entered the legal services fray when its venture capital arm gave Rocket Lawyer $18.5 million.  Rocket Lawyer is a subscription legal services web site similar to LegalZoom with one minor twist.  Rocket Lawyer offers the opportunity to customers to have their documents reviewed by an actual attorney.  That might hold off the unauthorized practice of law lawsuits from bar associations.  Or maybe not.  Fees range from $9.95 to $20 for the monthly plan, and between $120 and $300 per year depending on whether the plan is personal or professional.  

The personal plan offers these types of documents:

• Bill of Sale Document
• Complete Will Document
• Divorce Settlement Agreement
• Power of Attorney Document
• Prenuptial Agreement
• Promissory Notes
• Quit Claim Deed
• Residential Lease Document

The professional plan includes these:

• Bill of Sale Document
• Confidentiality Agreement
• Consulting Agreement
• Contractor Agreement
• Employment Agreement
• General Service Contract
• Non-Disclosure Agreement
• Non-Compete Agreement

Solo practitioners and small firms can’t be too thrilled about this prospect.  It’s not that flat fees don’t exist in the legal profession, though it’s pretty unusual for them to show up at the corner attorney office level.   Sure there is less personal contact between attorney and client, but does that matter for some legal services?  One question that comes to mind is how a web site can establish an attorney-client relationship.  

For pondering that one, Pinky, I would recommend Professor Catherine J. Lanctot’s article Attorney-Client Relationships in Cyberspace: The Peril And The Promise (49 Duke L.J 147 (1999)).  From the abstract:

In this Article, Professor Lanctot examines the issue of lawyer-layperson communications in cyberspace from doctrinal and historical perspectives. The Article's analysis of the case law demonstrates that online exchanges resulting in the giving of specific legal advice likely will be viewed as creating attorney-client relationships. Moreover, disclaimers are unlikely to provide the protection that many lawyers seek. The Article then reviews the history of bar regulation of advice-giving in a variety of contexts, from the Good Will Court radio broadcasts of the 1930s to today's seminars and 900-number services. The Article shows that the bar consistently has both viewed the furnishing of particularized legal advice as creating an attorney-client relationship and frowned on such advice-giving in nontraditional contexts. The bar's cool response to forms of legal assistance spurred by new technology sounds a cautionary note for lawyers on the Internet.

Apparently not so cautionary to stop a company such as Google from getting involved.  I would imagine that at some point Google might leverage some of its other services to Rocket Lawyer.  I could also imagine Google might, depending on the success of the venture, sponsor legal services as part of its broader offerings.  Contracts with Google ads in the margin, anyone?  Maybe it won’t come to that.  Google is a happy industry disrupter.  The fact that the company is putting money into web-based legal services is enough to raise questions as to what this is all about.  Will there be a menu choice called Google Law?  [MG]