alt.legal: Getting High, Battling Trolls, And Killing Zombies -- Legally
Is "legal innovation" an oxymoron? Absolutely not, as some new crowdfunding projects demonstrate.
Lawyer goes to Ivy League law school, enters Biglaw, hates it, quits to form a company changing the legal profession for the better, has great success, retires and eats bon bons on his/her couch. This, more or less, was the alt.legal story I was finalizing before I met Seth Oranburg over cocktails last week (if there is another way to meet people, please tell me – I’m getting too old for this).
While Seth has had a fairly traditional legal path (U. Chicago Law, associate at Cadwalader and Fenwick, and teaching gigs at NYU and Chicago-Kent), his current academic interest are quintessentially alt.legal. He regaled me with stories of the real-time action of crowdfunding, and how it’s being applied to some legal businesses, in very strange ways.
Loving what I heard, I asked if he would share the drama of legal crowdfunding stories. Here’s what Seth and I discussed.
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Some critics say “legal innovation” is an oxymoron — how would you respond?
Some cynics say that “legal innovation” is an oxymoron, but that’s not fair. Ted Wang at Fenwick LLP led the Series Seed project to crowd-source financing documents. Mark Harris created Axiom Law to “transform the industry.” Dan Katz at Chicago-Kent analyzes big data and the legal profession. But legal innovations just haven’t felt sexy like those über-Kickstarter winners Pebble, Coolest Cooler and Pono – until now?
You mentioned to me three Kickstarter projects that are trying to shake up patent law, marijuana law, and zombie law. Equipped with nothing but some text and maybe a Flash video, three legal dreamers are asking the crowd for its support. Who will prevail?
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Kill the Patent Troll is a current campaign that raised almost $12,000 in 10 days – but Kickstarter campaigns have a 30-day funding deadline so time is ticking to achieve its $50,000 goal! Alvaro Ramirez Bonilla connects victims, defendants, information and counsel. The campaign name also sounds like a sweet video game. This strikes me as a useful grassroots alternative to class action litigation. Been whacked by a troll? Whack back with Kill the Patent Troll!™ OK, that’s not their actual pitch, but this campaign gets my vote because it uses social media and gameification to solve a collective action problem.
MJ Legal Solutions is a failed campaign that wanted to raise $120,000 to create a legal assistance portal for marijuana businesses and users in Colorado – but it raised only $30 in 30 days! This campaign promised to create a portal like Angie’s List where consumers for marijuana business law advice could share information and shop for services, and the portal would charge a fee or take a cut. The failure of this campaign may be related to the for-profit business model. Why would Kickstarter backers fund a for-profit web site they would have to pay to use?
Zombie Law: Zombies in the Federal Courts is a legal crowdfunding project that is very much alive. It’s alive! This project met its fundraising goal and will go to production, but there is still time to order your own Zombie Law casebook. Apparently the word “zombie” is in over 300 federal court opinions, and Joshua Warren started this Kickstarter campaign to compile them into a legal casebook exploring zombie law. Backers not only pre-purchase the limited edition Zombie Law casebook, but also receive rewards including Zombie flash drives and pens depicting SCOTUS justices as zombies. This project gets my vote because it promises to produce a study in legal rhetoric – and moreover to look good on a bookshelf along side the rest of the casebooks you haven’t read since 1L. I think that offering unique products is a great use of crowdfunding, and I like the business model that combines the pre-purchase with fun rewards for backers. (Zombie fans can also check out the Zombies in the Law Blog.)
What can we learn from these examples about crowdfunding and legal innovation?
It seems that crowdfunding can be applied to solve legal problems, but backers will only contribute when the campaign looks like it can solve a collective problem or when the backers receive a valuable reward.
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It’s encouraging to see crowdfunding being used to solve a legal collective action problem like patent-troll litigation. It’s also great to see lawyers using crowdfunding to get creative and have a little fun. But if you want to build a $120,000 web site so you can make money on marijuana law, looks like you’ll have to fund it yourself.
Ed. note: If you’re interested in marijuana law, come to Above the Law’s marijuana law reception on June 16.
Joe Borstein is a Global Director at Thomson Reuters’ award-winning legal outsourcing company, Pangea3, which employs over 1,000 full-time attorneys across the globe. He and his co-author Ed Sohn each spent over half a decade as associates in Biglaw and were classmates at Penn Law.
Joe manages a global team dedicated to counseling law firm and corporate clients on how to best leverage Pangea3’s full-time attorneys to improve legal results, cut costs, raise profits, and have a social life. He is a frequent speaker on global trends in the legal industry and, specifically, how law firms are leveraging those trends to become more profitable. If you are interested in entrepreneurship and the delivery of legal services, please reach out to Joe directly at joe.borstein@thomsonreuters.com.
