Pre-Crime and UPL

Remember the 2002 film "Minority Report" directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Tom Cruise? Set in 2054 Washington D.C., the movie's premise was that three people with clairvoyant powers, called "Pre-Cogs" could predict crime down to the who, what, and where. Tom Cruise's character, John Anderton was in charge of the Pre-Crime Unit and believed wholeheartedly in the system's flawless accuracy. Until one day, one of the Pre-Cogs predicted that he would murder someone within the next 36 hours.

It's a riveting film that raises multiple questions about the dark side of predictive analytics. Police departments are currently testing programs that predict where crimes may occur. According to a May, 2014 article in CNN Tech by Heather Kelly, the program appears deceptively simple.

"A map of a city is marked up with small red squares, each indicating a 500-by-500-foot zone where crimes are likely to take place next. A heat-map mode shows even more precisely where cars may be stolen, houses robbed, people mugged.

The program is called PredPol, and it calculates its forecasts based on times and locations of previous crimes, combined with sociological information about criminal behavior and patterns. The technology has been beta tested in the Santa Cruz, California police department for the past year, and in an L.A. police precinct for the past six months, with promising results."

We intuitively use predictive analysis daily by making personal and business decisions based on the past. We also encounter multiple instances of predictive analytic algorithms as we navigate through life. Did you see those suggestions after you chose a Netflix film? Based on your past behavior the software generates suggestions that seem to meet your criteria. Predictive analytic models were used to predict and assess future risks in marketing mortgage backed securities. These models became more and more complex as the developers attempted to control for unknown variables. The Netflix suggestions are rarely 100% on point. And, we only have to look back to 2008 to realize that despite all the analytic models controlling for all possible unknowns; and all the king's horses and all the king's men, Humpty Dumpty still fell off the wall. The analysts failed to know all the unknowns, and failed to foresee other circumstances that finally proved their analytic models unsound. In the housing market crash, the models did not foresee that so many homeowners would default on their mortgage payments at the same time.

Florida legal document preparers encounter a special type of predictive analytics perpetrated by and through the Florida Bar UPL Committee. Most of the letters sent to document preparers upon the opening of a Florida Bar investigation about their engagement in the unauthorized practice of law, begin: "you may be engaging in the unauthorized practice of law". The basis for the allegations are more like the methods used by the clairvoyant Pre-Cogs than based on any actual past behavior. In fact, only a small percentage of UPL complaints are initiated by consumers. The lion's share of UPL complaints, in Florida at least, are initiated by attorneys or the Florida Bar UPL Committee itself. Consumer harm rarely seems to come into the picture, rather, vague assertions that are all the more sinister for their failure to even allege consumer harm are common.

A May 2014 article by Tom Gordon of Responsive Law, summarizes a recent follow up of a 1980s study of UPL by Stanford Law Professor, Barbara Rhode, Gordon states:

"Courts are also complicit in the pro-lawyer, anti-consumer bias found in UPL cases. Rhode’s article shows that courts adjudicating UPL cases rarely considered whether people were hurt by alleged UPL, much less how they were hurt. Only about a quarter of reported cases discussed public harm when litigated, despite the bar’s continued statements that UPL exists to protect the consumer. In the court cases where it was mentioned, public harm was used only to aid in determining a penalty, rather than to discuss how UPL harmed the consumer in question. Thus, even if UPL restrictions are intended to protect consumers, courts are not applying them for that purpose. 

Cases that are litigated under UPL restrictions can also include legal services rendered which were actually helpful to consumers. Regardless of whether or not the person offering legal services provided a useful or even desperately needed service, he/she can be penalized under UPL restrictions. If these rules existed to protect and aid legal customers, as the bar states, a legal service that was helpful to the person receiving it should not be litigated under UPL. Yet Rhode found evidence supporting the lack of interest in interpreting UPL cases from a consumer point of view—only 11 percent of the UPL cases discussed whether or not the violation in question had met an important public need. The UPL services in question may have actually benefited legal consumers, but the bar and the courts chose to ignore the interests of the public.

One of Rhode’s conclusions is that “[a] more consumer-oriented approach would also vest enforcement authority in a more disinterested body than the organized bar.” The bar may state that UPL litigation is aimed at protecting the consumer, but Rhode’s article proves that this is a tired statement without much substance. While the bar may have become more adept at selling this argument, it’s no more true than it was when Rhode first studied the topic three decades ago". 

Florida publishes forms for pro se litigants to use to file family law documents. However, those forms and their instructions confuse and confound many consumers. Florida legal document preparers fill the void by preparing those documents for consumers. The Florida Association of Legal Document Preparers - www.faldp.org promotes and supports consumers and Florida legal document preparers.

What is FALDP?

Founded in 2010, we offer Florida legal consumers education, legal information, and services. We are also a voluntary trade association for Florida legal document preparers, with around 100 members statewide. Our website provides a wide array of information and resources for Florida pro se litigants, including articles, Self-Help Guides, Supreme Court approved family law forms, and online courses. Consumers can search our Member Directory to find a document preparer who provides the needed service. Our members prepare documents for family law, small claims, bankruptcy, and many other areas. Some document preparers conduct business in the traditional way - in a storefront location or office - while other document preparers are completely virtual - conducting business only over the phone and over the internet. Prospective members must submit an application and meet standards prior to joining.

Two pages have recently been added to www.faldp.org - Compliance - where consumers can complain if they feel they have been harmed by a document preparer. And, another page - Recognition - where consumers can offer feedback when they receive effective assistance from a member of the association.

Florida legal document preparers fulfill a consumer need.