Old Lady Lawyer: Is Low-Cost Lawyering The Answer?

Low-cost lawyering is on the rise, but is it best for the client?

old lady lawyer elderly woman grandmother grandma laptop computer The American Bar Association has a pilot project in three states with Rocket Lawyer to provide small businesses with low cost legal advice.

Avvo has Avvo Advisor, which provides a fifteen minute phone consultation with a lawyer experienced in the particular field. (Remember cross-over questions on the bar exam? I digress.) Legal Zoom has been in the forefront of the delivery of low-cost services to consumers.

Here’s my question: can a legal problem be diagnosed and resolved in just a short phone call or two? We all know that clients tend to shade the truth, to present their facts in the best possible light, and sometimes outright lie. If you don’t know that already, you missed the attorney-client relations class, aka “Clients Lie,” in law school. How many clients have said, “It’s a really simple question,” which then turns out to be anything but?

How do you know what you’re getting into in that brief tête-à-tête? Advice changes when the facts can change — and usually do, either prior to or at your client’s deposition. How do you know how to answer what may seem to be a facially straightforward question but, when further examined, poses a peck of troubles and issues that require a very large retainer? How can you decide what advice to give if there is a smoking gun lurking (dispositive for your client, one way or the other) in batches of emails, documents, letters, faxes that you can’t possibly know about yet? How can you be sure that the advice you give in that brief time is right for the client and the situation? Any need to put the malpractice carrier on notice?

As an example: years ago, I received a letter from a plaintiff’s lawyer who said his client had been fired for no reason and gave the usual litany of case law in support of the claim. Au contraire. Upon investigation, speaking with various staff members, it turned out that his client was indeed fired… for falsification of corporate records and I so advised the lawyer. I never heard from him again, but, from an employer’s perspective, that was not something that could be handled briefly.

Fact-checking is critical. How many plaintiffs’ lawyers take on cases that aren’t what they seem to be? How many defense lawyers do likewise? It seems to be a particular peril for newer lawyers anxious to develop a client base, an understandable peril.

Far be it from me to say that lawyers never give bad advice even after time to investigate, never waste time on irrelevant discovery, never see the bad side of the case until it’s ready for trial, but I truly wonder whether good lawyering at low cost is good for the client, for the lawyer, and for the profession at large.

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Some purely anecdotal examples:

  • One law firm here in Los Angeles has radio advertisements trumpeting the firm’s ability to fix the work that the firm claims a low-cost legal provider gets wrong.
  • A law school classmate of mine has a number of cases (on the billable hour basis) reworking boilerplate documents that were wrong for the particular clients’ situations. So, now the clients are paying twice. I can’t imagine they’re happy about that.
  • A third lawyer spends much of his business development time explaining to prospective clients why he’s worth what he charges, rather than the prospects choosing the low cost alternative. While prospects dither about whether to hire him, he tries to put a “bad news, good news” spin on it. The bad news is the income reduction. The good news? He’s able to fill out financial declarations for college aid for his off-to-college child with greater ease.

It’s not just the older lawyers who are feeling the effects of low cost providers; it’s also the newbies, who often did a lot of the “bread and butter” work now handled in other ways. In the olden days, newer lawyers (count me in this group many years ago) learned by using the “space for services” concept, one which I haven’t seen or heard about in ages.

Newer lawyers would rent office space for free, or at greatly reduced rates, in exchange for a certain number of hours of legal work every month. It was a great way to learn, flying solo with an instructor at the elbow. (There used to be ads in the local legal newspaper advertising that. I haven’t seen anything akin to that on Craigslist. The contract lawyer concept seems to be the model now.)

I’m not the first one to say that the middle class is vastly underserved and underserviced by lawyers. I definitely won’t be the last. The vast majority of lawyers in this country are either solos or in small firms with substantial overheads, which they try to reduce by using home offices, contract lawyers and support staff, and (gulp) going bare. Just like everyone else, lawyers should be able to make a decent living. They may not be able to live like hedge fund kings (and I don’t think they should), but they should be able to house, feed, clothe, and educate their families, and somehow pay off those mounds of student loan debt.

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But what about the clients? What kind of product and/or service do they get for these low costs? Does one size truly fit all? Is fitting the advice to the client’s specific legal needs a thing of the past? It usually takes patient digging to get to the heart of the client’s matter (or matters), and that takes time. It would be great if all clients’ problems could be solved so quickly, but that’s not the case, normally to the client’s chagrin.

Are we, especially the older lawyers with more experience and higher billing rates, pricing ourselves out of the new marketplace? I don’t have answers; I just have questions.


Jill Switzer is closing in on 40 (not a typo) years as a active member of the State Bar of California. Yes, folks, California, that state west of the Sierra Nevada, which everyone likes to diss. She’s had a diverse legal career, including stints as a deputy district attorney, a solo practice, and several senior in-house gigs. She now mediates full-time, which gives her the opportunity to see old lawyers, young lawyers, and those in-between interact — it’s not always pretty. You can reach her by email at oldladylawyer@gmail.com.