To recap. The NJ Supreme Court have rapped Avvo , Rocket Lawyer et al over the knuckles with regard to the fees they charge for their online referral services.
Above the law has published a couple of pieces today that tackle the subject
A) Kevin O’Keefe writes…
State Supreme Courts And Bar Associations Are Limiting Access To Legal Services
This is a real shame — for the public and for lawyers.
It sure seems that way when looking at how some of them prevent the use of innovation and technology to make lawyers relevant to the 85% of Americans who don’t think of using a lawyer when a legal need arises. Let alone providing access to justice to the poor in this country.
The latest comes from the New Jersey Supreme Court, the governing body for lawyer licensure in the state, which last week blacklisted services from Avvo, LegalZoom and RocketLawyer that match consumers with attorneys because of concerns over fee-sharing and referral fees.
B) Shannon Achimalbe writes
Should Avvo’s Legal Services Be Considered An Ethical Form Of Fee Splitting?
Avvo has argued that the fee-splitting prohibition could be a violation of the First Amendment.
A few days ago, three committees appointed by the New Jersey Supreme Court jointly ruled that its lawyers cannot participate in Avvo’s Legal Services program because it engages in unethical fee splitting with non-lawyers.
Avvo’s Legal Services program works like this: A lawyer who signs up for the program will have a chance to be connected to a client seeking a 15-minute consultation. The client pays $39.95 to Avvo which is deposited to the attorney’s bank account. Soon after, in a separate transaction, Avvo debits $10 from the attorney’s bank account as an “marketing fee” for that client.
Does the above make Avvo’s Legal Services program a fee-splitting scheme? Yes. You can call it a “marketing fee” or some other name that doesn’t include the words “fee split with non-lawyers.” But it does not change the fact that a lawyer is getting paid and a non-lawyer is getting a cut of that pay. And it’s not just New Jersey that thinks this way. The state bar ethics committees of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina also ruled that this was impermissible fee splitting. I am very confident that other states will rule the same way.
