Posted on 10/15/2014 11:34:23 AM PDT by reaganaut1
Competition – everyone loves it, except when it’s competition in your particular business or profession. Then it’s dangerous and must be controlled if not eliminated.
Back in August, I wrote about the North Carolina Board of Dental Examiners case, which involves the legality of efforts by that body to stop anyone who is not a licensed dentist from offering teeth whitening services. Upon digging further into the case, I learned that it has spawned a raging battle among legal groups, with four state bar associations weighing in on an amicus brief. They evidently fear that if the decision goes against the Board of Dental Examiners, that might undermine their ability to stifle competition in the market for legal help.
Opposing them is a brief submitted by Responsive Law, LegalZoom, and other self-help entities, backed by thirteen law professors. That brief turns over a rock and lets sunlight shine on nefarious anticompetitive doings.
First, however, what is the connection between the North Carolina Board of Dental Examiners and the state bar associations (including the North Carolina bar)?
The common thread is that they are private organizations wielding governmental power (or what at least looks like governmental power) to prevent competition, without actually having been authorized by the public to act in that manner. If the Supreme Court rules that the Board of Dental Examiners is not above antitrust law when it tries to keep the teeth whitening business exclusively for dentists, then it might rule the same way about bar associations and their similar activities. That has them worried.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
I would like to hear Mark Levins take on this issue.
My only problem wiht LegalZoom is that they use that lame marketing strategy “It’s National Make a Will Month!” aka “It’s National Buy Our Product Month!”
All knowledge-based professions are up against this and will more and more over time lose to ever better computer-based learning and robot-controlled systems.
The only thing illegal in this fascist dictatorship that we have allowed the nation to slip into is freedom.
Freedom is officially illegal now and has been since the usurper occupied the White Hut.
The objective of Licensing requirements, is to keep competitors out. should be done by independent organization and they should be liable
The legal biz is vile. Three cheers for LegslZoom.
If I had some simple legal issue, for which boiler plate legal documents were adequate, I might use them. Otherwise, for more complicated legal matters, or issues of big legal or financial liability, I would spend the money to hire an attorney to deal with a legal matter.
That is the point though - we should have the right to choose. I self-diagnose (with Internet help) and self-prescribe for most medical conditions. When it comes to the big things, I go to a real doctor. Why not do the same with lawyers?
Legalzoom.com is great if all you need is very general info.
Boilerplate legal documents are fine for some things, like Bills of Sale for small items for example.
Ain't Fascism wonderful?
This is the same as if union plumbers tried to make handy-man services illegal, or if licensed psychologists tried to make self-help books illegal, or if salesmen tried to make Craig’s list illegal, or if burger king tried to make backyard flame broiling illegal. The Free-market will always find the most efficient path, the toll both of Government licensing and regulation has a by-pass. I despise those who refuse to innovate and increase their market value, but seek only to stay king of the hill by keeping others off the hill.
I wasn't aware that LegalZoom offered anything beyond boilerplate legal documents.
That’s the problem I have with them. We have a practice that’s largely estate planning and probate. I’ve had 10 internet-prepared wills brought in for probate, and 9 of them were legally insufficient; i.e., didn’t comply with some combination of Texas Estates (fmrly Probate) Code requirements, didn’t dispose of the estate the way it was told to me the testator wanted it disposed of, or were so full of pseudolegal gobbledygook that they looked like pleadings filed by a Republic of Texas sovereign citizen.
What happens in those cases is that the will is invalid and the property is disposed of according to the laws of descent and distribution, which is very often not what the testator intended.
I haven’t gone into my time on the local subcommittee of the Unauthorized Practice of Law Committee, but there’s always at least one Legalzoom case on the list.
My only problem with LegalZoom is OJ’s lawyer owns it.
See my post above. I’m less interested in squashing the competition (competition is healthy) than in the fact that too often, people think they’ve done something according to law but they haven’t. That hurts them, the other parties to the transaction and the judicial system, which is taken up by people trying to enforce unenforceable documents.
You should offer to help them make a Texas valid will. You make money for consultation, they make money for offering solid services and fewer people find their estates in probate. The free market, ain't it great!
Legalize freedom!
That is my problem with services such as Legalzoom or “prepaid legal svces”
IANAL, but I have worked as a paralegal and was fairly involved in 2 lawsuits I brought. (And lost both)
You are exactly correct, though you are sort of playing down the downside. It can be absolutely catastrophic.
Amateurs/laymen do not know what questions to ask. This is Darrell Issa’s problem as well, trying to act like a lawyer when he is not one. And everyone and anyone should look at what has resulted from his very poor questioning skills: In contrast to Gowdy, every question Issa asks leads to a bifurcation: Well, it could mean this and it could mean that. This does not happen when Gowdy asks a question: When he asks a question, you see the witness shed a few beads of sweat, then try to come up with an answer. THAT IS HOW LIES come out!!
The difference is between amateur and skilled, professional lawyering, and it is massive.
Amateurs/laymen have done the suggested action zero times. Professionals have done the suggested operation a dozen, a hundred, or perhaps 500 times. A competent business-acquisition lawyer would NEVER EVER IN A MILLION YEARS think they were a competent estate lawyer.
And you’re exactly right, perhaps the litigant or the administrator of a LZ-originated estate plan (particularly trusts, which can be exceptionally tricky) thinks they have their bases covered, but you know and I know that one “i” left undotted or one “T” uncrossed can result in a TOTAL FAILURE of the intended structure and the default condition is ABSOLUTELY NOT the judge saying “now now, I know you really meant this, not what you wrote, why don’t you go back and rewrite this and come back next Thursday?” Oh no. One of the people needed to sign the docs is dead. You can not get there. Now, everything you do, and must do, is measured in $20K increments, and may not work at all. It is ghastly horrible to be in that situation, and the chances are, you will if you try to pretend you know what you are doing in complex areas of the law.
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