Uberish

I read Jordan Furlong's recent article, "What Makes Uber Tick, and What Lawyers Can Learn from It". He makes some good points, but, in my opinion, didn't go quite far enough. I view all of this from the other side of the lens.

Furlong's article states: " ... lawyers should consider Uber a powerful illustration of how and why traditional providers lose control of their markets. Uber doesn’t succeed because its rides are cheaper, or not primarily because of that. It succeeds because it corrects the many flaws in the traditional taxi model."

The world needs lawyers to represent and give legal advice. But, sometimes, people only need documents. The world needs document preparers to do just that - responsively, conveniently, and at a reasonable cost.

When a consumer hires a document preparer for divorce documents, for instance, the necessary documents are almost always prepared for a flat fee. Period. Consumers know before they pay, exactly how much the service will cost, and exactly what services they can expect to receive.

Lawyers traditionally charge by the almighty billable hour. Statewide, lawyers rates average over $200. per hour. Besides the fact that many litigants earn less than $200 per day, the billable hour practice is confusing and those minutes and minutiae quickly add up to exorbitant amounts and whoops there goes the retainer. Consumers don't know until they find out the hard way that their lawyer is going to bill them against the retainer for every email, every phone call, every document the lawyer reads related to their case, every document prepared in their case, every out of pocket expense, paralegal fees billed out at anywhere from $100 to $200 per hour, mediation, consultation, and court appearances. And before the client knows it, its time for mediation or a court hearing, and the lawyer is asking for more fees. If the consumer has no more lawyer money to spend, he goes it alone, pro se. And, that consumer, is usually not happy about the experience. Small wonder that lawyers have such a terrible reputation.

It happens all the time, that a lawyer withdraws at just these critical junctures, because the client has no more money to spend. Even though it is considered unethical for a lawyer to leave their client high and dry in this manner ... it happens all the time.

I agree with Furlong that no one wants to see lawyers disappear entirely, just as it is not practical for taxis to be replaced entirely by Uber drivers. There is a place in the market for taxis and Uber drivers; lawyers and document preparers. Consumers who choose Uber over a taxi do so for customer service, convenience, and price. In Uber's case the price for services may be similar to a taxi ride. Lawyer fees and document preparer fees are often miles apart. Document preparers often charge just 10% of what a lawyer would charge. Routine documents for things like, divorce and bankruptcy are the handiest comparisons.

For example, bankruptcy petition preparers charge around $200 to prepare the thirty some odd documents for a bankruptcy; lawyers typically charge around $2000. Initiating a Florida divorce with a lawyer may begin with a retainer of anywhere from $1500 to $10,000. Document preparers charge between $99 and $500. Initiating a divorce requires paperwork, and to be fair to lawyers in the comparison, lawyers services may also include legal advice and court appearances. At the low end for divorce lawyer's fees, $1500., if a client receives for that money - document preparation, service of process, filing fees, and some advice - he's actually done well. And the services he received, at least as far as price, would be roughly comparable to a legal document preparer. A document preparer at the high end, preparing divorce documents for $500, plus services of process (around $75), plus filing fee ($408. in most counties) and no advice or representation is about $900 - $600 less than the low end lawyer. So that consumer has $600 left to spend on legal consultations, or court appearances.

Furlong's article goes on to mention some partial solutions to delivery of legal services, listing some referral sources and alternate legal service providers. The Florida Supreme Court Commission on Access to Justice repeatedly touts technological solutions as the path to legal access, and have been discussing better technology solutions for the past two years.

We, FALDP, have developed our own technology solution. Our FALDP Document Portal allows consumers to prepare their own documents online for a small fee. As far as we have found, our site works better than any of the court sites, or private sector sites in Florida. For $99 consumers have unlimited use for one month to prepare their own family law documents. The consumer enters their information once into a questionnaire, form fields automatically fill throughout the form set, then the consumer can either save the completed forms to their computer or print them out. All forms are based on Florida Supreme court approved family law forms.

www.FALDP-DocumentPortal.org

Furlong states: "Lawyers, like cab drivers, are useful and capable service providers who nonetheless are sabotaging themselves through their own lousy delivery models."

Lawyers and taxis have been around for centuries. Uber and document preparers were born to offer services more conveniently, with better customer service, and crystal clear price transparency.

The customer is the most important part of any business. And if a business doesn't take care of their customers -- someone else will.