This week I have been talking to my summer law clerk about her recent selection to be a staff member of the Arizona State University Law Journal.  She is a very bright young lady who just finished her first year of law school at ASU.  Her selection reminded me of my experience as a staff member and the associate managing editor of the Pacific Law Journal at my law school, the McGeorge School of Law at the University of the Pacific.

Before my law review experience I hated writing.  It was very difficult for me to write my article, but the article was selected for publication in the law journal.  My year as the associate managing editor taught me about writing and to overcome my fear and reluctance to write.  The managing editor and I were responsible for reading and editing every word of the two hard copy editions of the journal that were published during my tenure.

Law review is a nice feather in the cap of young law school grads seeking jobs early in their career, but the experience itself has intangible benefits.

An article in Forbes called “Abolish the Law Reviews!Abolish the Law Reviews!” contains the following true statement about law reviews:

“Whereas most periodicals are published primarily in order that they may be read, the law reviews are published primarily in order that they may be written.”

The article makes a point with which I agree.  The print version of law reviews should be abolished.  The Harvard Law Review had 1,896 subscibers in 2010-11.  I suspect that most law reviews have a lot fewer subscribers.  Law reviews should be online only.

Yesterday I saw the following on a lawyer list serve:

“I’m still concerned about the security of the information.  Anything involving software can be hacked. Although I freely admit to a tech deficient mind, still I have not seen any info which demonstrates that cloud computing is less risky than not using cloud computing.”

I responded to this message with this text:

“Which is easer to hack:

 1.  The hard copies of your documents in your office that a burglar could steal by breaking into your office or that might be destroyed if your building burns down, or
2.  The encrypted files on Amazon’s servers where our Jungle Disk auto-cloud system backs up our data every night without any human involvement?

P.S. If you use the highest level of Jungle Disk’s encryption it can’t be hacked and if you lose your key you’ll lose everything.”

A retired USAF guy answered me with:

After flying fighters and doing intel stuff, I served as the first squadron commander of a combined space test and aggressor squadron in the USAF. Space work has a lot of crossover with information security…hacking. I can promise you that anyone that thinks a piece of software is unhackable has spent little time with very bright millennials who may or may not have training with the “big boys” (the military or NSA) and who can crack almost anything…and if that individual cannot do it, they know someone who can.

We are deluding ourselves to think that our security is unhackable, anymore than a door is unbreakable. We have to simply trust that for the most part, we’re all too small for anyone to care about what is on our server, so the hacker doesn’t target us.”

The guy’s response kind of rubbed me the wrong way so I responded:

“YGBSM.  Typical wing puke who can’t see the forest from the trees.  I flew the F-4 Phantom in combat in Southeast Asia and taught very bright USAF pilots to fly the Phantom at an F-4 RTU for three years.

I don’t know computer security, but I do know that anybody who is afraid of state of the art cloud back ups or storage but uses the extremely low tech and highly vulnerable telephone to talk about client stuff while their office can burn to the ground (server destroyed) or be broken into (server stolen and then hacked) does not appreciate which threats have the greatest risk of occurring.  I personally know attorneys whose offices were destroyed and they didn’t have copies of their client files stored off site.  Oops!  When that happens all client info is lost.  I don’t know any lawyer whose encrypted data was hacked, nor have I read about it happening.  If you know about a lawyer or law firm whose encrypted data was hacked please tell us about it.  There are reasons hackers want to attack top secret U.S. and military databases and systems, but those reasons don’t apply to you and me and our data.  Bright millennials are not going to waste their time on either of us or any lawyer on this list serve.

The issue in not whether encrypted data can be hacked (the trees), but which threats have the higher risk of actually occurring (the forest) and which threats have a sufficiently high risk of occurring that justify using your resources to protect against?  When I was flying combat missions over Route Pack 6 in North Vietnam in 1972 I got a lot of threat information from the RHAW (radar homing and warning) gear, the mod 1 eyeballs and the radio.  Red Crown broadcast the location of all MiGs airborne over North Vietnam and warned flights when a MiG got close.  I had to analyze the threats and determine which threats, if any, were the highest threats and take action accordingly.  For example, when the azimuth/section light (fondly called the “ah shit” light) illuminated, the launch light flashed on and off and I got a loud missile launch tone in my headset I knew my biggest threat that required immediate attention was the 32 foot long supersonic flying telephone pole that was tracking my airplane.

I agree that a thief may exist who is a very bright millennial who could hack into my encrypted cloud-based data, but I have a better chance of wining a Powerball jackpot than that happening.  I’m much more likely to lose everything in a fire, natural disaster or a hard drive crash.  The latter is the biggest threat all lawyers and law firms face.

You said “We are deluding ourselves to think that our security is unhackable.”  When I said my encrypted cloud backup system couldn’t be hacked I meant it could not be hacked in the real world you and I live in.  Nobody is going to use the resources necessary to hack into data that you or I encrypt.  It is delusional, however, to fail to create an automated data back system that stores your data off site and that makes automatic daily backups because the biggest cyber threat that every lawyer must protect against is the crash of a hard drive that causes data to be lost because of no backup or old and cold back ups. Yes I know of lawyers who lost data because they didn’t properly backup or didn’t back up off site at all.  I met yesterday with an Intel engineer who has a Ph.D. in electrical engineering who told me he was backing up all of his home computer data “every once in a while” to an external hard drive that just crashed and caused him to lose 350 gigs of data.

P.S.  I’ve been 100% paperless since 2004 – 150,000 plus documents on my server that I can access from anywhere in the world using my browser and an internet connection.  Yes a hacker dude could bust into my system, then again I could be killed by a shark that falls out of the sky and lands on me.”

What  do you think?  Leave a comment.

I have a new contestant for the worst email signature block spam of the year.  I got an email message today with the following text after the sender’s name:

This e-mail transmission contains information that is intended to be privileged and confidential pursuant to the attorney-client privilege and the work product doctrine. It is intended only for the addressee, or the employee or agent responsible for delivering it to the intended recipient. If you receive this e-mail in error, please do not read, copy or disseminate it in any manner. Please reply by e-mail and delete or discard the message. Your assistance in correcting this error is appreciated.

Although this e-mail and any attachments are believed to be free of any virus or other defects that might affect any computer system into which it is received and opened, it is the responsibility of the recipient to ensure that it is virus-free.

If your e-mail contained a question, the above response to your question is based solely on the information contained in your message. I would likely need to know more facts and possibly conduct research before giving a response on which I would expect you to rely in the conduct of your affairs. There also may be exceptions to the general legal principles that are discussed in this response. This response is based on my knowledge of Arizona estates and trust law only, and not any other state.

No information contained in any e-mail is a substitute for a personal consultation with an attorney. This message is not intended to provide legal advice, imply an attorney-client relationship, nor be deemed to contain the signature of the sender nor any other party. The sender takes no responsibility for reliance on this message by anyone without specific, actual and not implied, independent authorization by the sender to so rely.

Pursuant to the rules of professional conduct set forth in Circular 230, as promulgated by the United States Department of the Treasury, nothing contained in this communication was intended or written to be used by any taxpayer for the purpose of avoiding penalties that may be imposed on the taxpayer by the Internal Revenue Service, and it cannot be used by any taxpayer for such purpose. No one, without our express prior written permission, may use or refer to any tax advice in this communication in promoting, marketing, or recommending a partnership or other entity, investment plan or arrangement to any other party.

Do you have any examples of signature block spam in an email?  Add a comment if you do.

In April of 2012 there was a very interesting discussion on the Wealthcounsel member listserve about LegalZoom and its impact on the future of law practices.  The discussion was started by Orange County estate planning attorney David Hiersekorn who began a message with:

“I attended a conference this last week and got to hear some pretty smart and influential folks talk about technology. That, and a six-hour drive home, gave me some time to think about our profession and how we are handling technology. Some of you know that I’m obsessed with redefining our industry to better match the way people live and work in the modern era. Well, apropos to nothing, here are some thoughts and observations. I’d love to hear what others have to say.

I’ll start with a couple of examples from history. In the 1870s, Western Union had several opportunities to buy the rights to the telephone. They made a calculated business decision to ignore the telephone, believing that it was only a local communications tool and that people wouldn’t want to communicate over the telephone. We all know how that turned out. More recently, Blockbuster was given an opportunity to buy Neftlix for $50 million. They passed on the deal. Blockbuster is now going out of business.

In both instances, the large, sophisticated companies made phenomenal, existence-threatening mistakes because they lacked the imagination to see what the telephone would become or what online video would become. In both instances, they mistakenly believed that people preferred their method of delivery. The only evidence, by the way, was that people had historically chosen their method of delivery.

Think about that. Blockbuster decided that people would choose the store over the mailbox based solely on the fact that people chose the store when the mailbox WASN’T AN OPTION. It’s stupidity.

Today, our industry is threatened by LegalZoom. I’ve heard people say that ‘my clients wouldn’t go to LegalZoom.’ Really? Are you sure? Because, if you actually believe that, you might be qualified for a spot on the Western Union or Blockbuster Board of Directors.

WE HAVE NO MORE EVIDENCE FOR THAT BELIEF THAN WESTERN UNION OR BLOCKBUSTER HAD WHEN THEY MADE THEIR FATAL DECISIONS, EITHER.”

If you are an attorney whose practice areas includes any of the types of “nonlegal” services offered by LegalZoom then you are competing with LegalZoom whether you want to admit it or not.  One of my areas of practice is the formation of limited liability companies.  I have formed 3,400+ LLCs since I started counting in 2002.  My main competitor is LegalZoom, not other attorneys who charge a lot to form an Arizona LLC and do not give clients much in return.

One of the reasons I form a lot of LLCs is because I only charge $599, a price that includes an $85 filing fee.  Check out what I give my clients for $599.  I also made a video in which the KEYTLaw Girl explains what people get for $599.

httpvh://youtu.be/oIjhKMA3nQ0

My price to form an Arizona LLC competes with LegalZoom’s price.  To help convince people they should hire me to form their Arizona LLC, I wrote an article called “Why You Should Hire Richard Keyt instead of LegalZoom to Form Your Arizona LLC.”

My point is that if you are competing with LegalZoom you need to do the following:

• Recognize you are competing with document preparers.

• If you elect to continue to practice in the same area of law as the document preparers then you must take action that will make you competitive, i.e., compete head on with the document preparers.  You must be able to convince prospects why they should hire you.

• If you are not willing to  compete with the document preparers then find and develop another area of law, but make sure the new area of law is one that cannot be replaced by technology.

I tell my son who is a CPA who just graduated from the Arizona State School of Law that he should go into practice areas that cannot be replaced by technology.  The most obvious area that will never be affected by LegalZoom and the document preparers is any type of litigation.  Until they deregulate the practice of law, a law license will be required to litigate.

The absolute worst areas of law that will be the most adversely affected by the document preparers are any legal services that produce documents such as entity formations and wills and trusts.  A lawyer friend told me recently that a client of his sold a $35 million office building without using an attorney because he used documents he got off the internet.

In the old days lawyers had a monopoly on legal knowledge and they would disclose that knowledge for a big fee.  Now knowledge is readily available at the click of a few key strokes and a Google search.  Legal knowledge is free or it can be obtained relatively inexpensively on the internet.  This new way of obtaining legal information has destroyed the old law firm model.  If you are practicing law the old way you can bury your head in the sand and hope your practice survives or you can adjust with the times and use technology to make you more efficient, productive and more money.

All lawyers should read a related story in Atlantic entitled “Why All Law Firms are Doomed to Fail.”  The article says:

“The legal industry is in crisis. But its archaic partnership models are built for inertia. . . . Most big corporate law firms aren’t built to run like modern businesses. . . . As Indiana University Law Professor William Henderson wrote yesterday for The AmLaw Daily, fundamental aspects of their business models are under attack from entrepreneurs who are finding ways to do tasks cheaper and more efficiently.”

The eLawyering Blog has a couple of interesting posts on LegalZoom and its affect on attorneys and the practice of law.  The first one is called “LegalZoom: The “Good Enough” Legal Solution.”

“LegalZoom, the leading online provider of legal services to consumers and small business, as predicted here previously, finally filed for an IPO last week. The company is seeking to raise $120 million to expand their services both in the US and internationally.  LegalZoom’s data in the S-1 filing is now available for everyone to analyze:

• In 2011, 490,000 orders were placed through their web site;
• 20% of all limited liability companies in California were done by LegalZoom;
• During the past ten years, LegalZoom has served over 2,000,000 customers.
• Revenue in 2011 was $156 million.”

The second article is “What Lawyers Can Learn From LegalZoom.”

“Unless you’ve been asleep for the last five years, you have probably heard of LegalZoom, the California-based, non-lawyer legal document preparation company that claims it has delivered over 1,000,000 wills to consumers, and that it is the largest incorporation company in the country. . . . Consumers don’t seem to care that they are not dealing with a law firm. As lawyers, we know the service they are selling is risky for consumers, but for consumers it delivers a “good enough” result. LegalZoom would not be growing at this fast a rate if they weren’t offering something that consumers want and value.”

What do you think?  If you are competing with LegalZoom, what have you done to convince prospects to hire you instead of LegalZoom?

Reuters:  “The crippled law firm Dewey & Leboeuf LLP filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Monday night and will seek approval to liquidate its business after failing to find a merger partner, marking the biggest collapse of a law firm in U.S. history.  Once one of the largest law firms in the U.S., Dewey has been hit by the loss of the vast majority of its roughly 300 partners to other firms amid concerns about compensation and a heavy debt load.”

A related story in the Wall St. Journal called “The Law Firm Business Model Is Dying” starts:

Rules that were adopted to protect the legal profession from outside competition are actually stifling it.  On Monday night the century-old law firm of Dewey & LeBoeuf filed for bankruptcy—following in the footsteps of other venerable firms such as Howrey & Simon, Heller Ehrman, Coudert Brothers, and Brobeck, Phelger and Harrison. It is easy to think that greedy lawyers are getting their just deserts. But this should not blind us from seeing that there is a better way for America’s law firms to do business.  The problems these firms face today are twofold: Large clients are increasingly using in-house counsel to reduce costs, and the public is increasingly taking the do-it-yourself route given the growing access.

You have to be a subscriber to access the full Wall St. Journal article.

The point of the article is that technology and the times have changed the way lawyers practice law.  Attorneys and firms who do not adjust to the changes will see their revenue decrease and in some cases vanish.  LegalZoom is here to stay and you can bet it will generate a huge number of competitors.

P.S.  I subscribe to the Wall St. Journal and read it every day on my iPhone and iPad.  Its only $9/month for full access to the paper.

In August of 2011 a good salesman for ExpertHub suckered me into purchasing a listing for estate planning lawyers on Nolo’s website at www.nolo.com.  Here’s a link to my listing.  The “referrals” I got from my listing on Nolo were of no use to me and did not result in a single dollar of income.

I paid ExperHub $750 eight months ago in return for which I would get a listing for estate planning probate and commercial real estate lawyers when people looked for that type of lawyer in Maricopa County, Arizona.  If somebody left an online inquiry about that type of legal service ExpertHub charged me $25 and sent me an email message with the text entered by the prospective client.

Here is a sample of some of the “leads” ExpertHub emailed to me:

• Father and grandfather passed away on the 2nd. We would like some assistance with the estate and paying final bills and distributing what remains of the estate.

• Misty said she was underage when her father died and his ashes were given to another person. Now that she is older she wants to get her fathers ashes back. But this other person will not give them back to her.

• Significant other has been diagnosed with life threatening illness. Need to know how to protect assets upon death. is marriage the only solution?

• Do I need a living revocable trust if my son is listed on all my accounts as the beneficiary?

• father died, assigned girlfriend personal rep., she wont answer our calls

• Review purchase and sales contract to see if earnest money can be returned.

• My Aunt died and has no will.

The next one is my favorite.

• I have a judgement against me for $160,000. I am single and make $10 an hour and will not be able to pay this back in my lifetime but what would happen if I were to marry a man with substantial assets? Will he also become liable for my judgement?

Bottom Line

In my opinion the $750 I paid ExpertHub in August of 2011 was a complete waste of money.  Now to add insult to injury I recently reviewed my March 2012 Amex account and saw that ExpertHub charged me another $750 last month. On April 20, 2012, I called ExpertHub and sent an email message asking to cancel my account immediately and refund my $750.  Today I got this message from Maria Albano, ExpertHub’s Billing Analyst, Ad Services Manager:

“We received your request for cancellation that was sent to our Customer Service department on April 20, 2012.

 Per our Terms and Conditions, our Advertising fees are non-refundable. Nolo/ExpertHub will terminate the automatic renewal of services and charges at any time, provided that Company delivers written notice to Nolo/ExpertHub by confirmed email, fax or letter at least two business days prior to the start of the next billing cycle date if paying on a flat rate or before the account balance reaches $0 if paying per lead.

 Because your request came in 4 weeks after we replenished your account on 3/13/12, and after the requirement of notification before your account balance reached $0, I am unable to issue the requested refund. I did however set your profile to deactivate upon reaching $0 balance and you will not incur further charges.

 You will be hearing from your Account Representative Dan Haight on our team for feedback and perhaps to offer suggestions for altering your Campaign to retain better results.

ExpertHub never sent me an email with an invoice that showed the charges and the balance remaining in the account.  Why do you suppose it didn’t do that?  ExpertHub never sent me a notice that my account would automatically renew and be charged $750 unless I cancelled before a certain date.  Nor did it send me a message that it had charged my credit card and renewed my account.  Why didn’t ExpertHub use the power of technology to keep me informed about the status of my account at least once a month.  P U!

Nolo vs. Avvo

For over a year I paid Avvo over $200/month for a priority attorney listing on its website.  I had the same result with Avvo, i.e., a complete waste of my money.  I do not recommend that any attorney pay money to Nolo / Experthub  or Avvo to get client prospects.  My opinion is that the primary reason prospective clients use these types of services is because they are looking for free legal advice.  If your experience is different, please comment.