Odds are, if you are an attorney that drafts wills, and you happen to run a blog, you’ve written something nasty and catty about “Legalzoom.” We do not like Legalzoom. If estate planners were Jedi Knights, Legalzoom would be our Deathstar. 
The reasons for this are many, and you can get a full-throttled dose of Jedi Knight estate-planner critiques of Legalzoom here, here, and here. But rather than reiterate the various problems with the giant legal document service, I thought that I would go through Legalzoom’s disclaimer to provide you a glimpse of what kind of service you get from this company.
I’ve linked to the Legalzoom disclaimer here; let’s go over the highlights together, shall we?
Right from the top:
LegalZoom is not a law firm, and the employees of LegalZoom are not acting as your attorney. LegalZoom’s legal document service is not a substitute for the advice of an attorney.
Well, at least they have the decency to remedy a misconception in the fine print. I mean, why would consumers think that Legalzoom provided legal advice? Just because the word “legal” is in the company name, and it was founded by that one O.J. attorney…
LegalZoom cannot provide legal advice and can only provide self-help services at your specific direction… LegalZoom is not permitted to engage in the practice of law. LegalZoom is prohibited from providing any kind of advice, explanation, opinion, or recommendation to a consumer about possible legal rights, remedies, defenses, options, selection of forms or strategies.
So as long you are intimately familiar with Minnesota case law involving will drafting formalities and trust formation, and you have studied the Uniform Probate Code and Minn. Stat. §524, you should be just fine. This is equivalent to saying that if you get hurt or are sick, you don’t need to talk to a doctor, just go to Walgreens.
LegalZoom’s document service also includes a review of your answers for completeness, spelling and grammar, as well as internal consistency of names, addresses and the like. At no time do we review your answers for legal sufficiency, draw legal conclusions, provide legal advice or apply the law to the facts of your particular situation. LegalZoom and its services are not a substitute for the advice of an attorney.
I’m guessing “Legalzoom: now offering Spellcheck!” wasn’t a popular company slogan with the marketing department.
I think that the above paragraph is what bothers me the most. Legalzoom advertises itself as a one-stop resource for legal services. Its commercials make it out to be an attorney-substitute service that satisfies your legal needs at a reasonable price. But its disclaimer makes clear that it is nothing more than a document warehouse. It treats major concerns like “legal sufficiency” as a trivial matter that you as the consumer needn’t worry about, so they simply bury it in the fine print. Once you get to the fine print, though, Legalzoom is very straightforward in its assertion that their documents are in many ways, legally useless.
Although LegalZoom takes every reasonable effort to ensure that the information on our website and documents are up-to-date and legally sufficient, the legal information on this site is not legal advice and is not guaranteed to be correct, complete or up-to-date. Because the law changes rapidly, is different from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, and is also subject to varying interpretations by different courts and certain government and administrative bodies, LegalZoom cannot guarantee that all the information on the site is completely current. The law is a personal matter, and no general information or legal tool like the kind LegalZoom provides can fit every circumstance.
The law is funny that way. There are “jurisdictions,” and it is pretty important that your Will follows the laws in that jurisdiction. But don’t let technicalities like state laws get in the way of your Will drafting.
I will end with this little gem:
LegalZoom is not responsible for any loss, injury, claim, liability, or damage related to your use of this site or any site linked to this site, whether from errors or omissions in the content of our site…. In short, your use of the site is at your own risk.
Confidence inspiring, no?
This is a nice review of their disclaimer. Thanks for the Practice Blawg mention. We haven’t been all doom and gloom about LegalZoom – check out the rest of our series here: http://practiceblawg.com/tag/legalzoom/ (More to come)
I am the General Counsel and VP of Product Development for LegalZoom.com. I am the main lawyer for LegalZoom and am the attorney responsible for the maintenance and development of our legal products. Thank you for your obvious interest in our company. I trust Mr. White will publish this comment so his readers see both sides of the issues.
Mr. White is mistaken in believing that all estate planning lawyers hate LegalZoom. There are hundreds of lawyers that maintain blogs, and only a few seem to dedicate their time and energy to bashing LegalZoom. Most attorneys who blog use their web site and blog to assist their clients and build their legal practice. Even one of the “estate-planner hatred” blogs showcased by Mr. White actually recognizes that LegalZoom is “good for people that truly can’t afford attorneys.”
But most people can afford an attorney…right? Not so fast! According to a December 2009 story in the Hennepin Lawyer, in Hennepin County, the neighboring county to St. Paul where Mr. White’s office is located, approximately seventy percent of family law cases are filed by a non-lawyer representing himself or herself. From the same story, local District Judge Bruce Peterson stated, “The price of legal services is beyond the reach of all low-income and many middle-income individuals and families.” With the hourly prices that a lot of lawyers charge today, it is no wonder that people turn to self-help for basic legal needs.
Mr. White makes an interesting analogy to the medical profession. What he fails to recognize is that not all medical problems need a visit to the doctor. Some need a Band-Aid® or cough syrup. Some can be handled by a nurse practitioner or physician’s assistant. So yes – sometimes you DO need a lawyer, but many people with common needs recognize that they can protect themselves and save money by using a self-help book or a web site like LegalZoom.
While criticizing an A+ rated company by the Better Business Bureau that has been in business for 10 years, Mr. White conveniently omits the fact that he has practiced estate planning law for only 7 months. Check out his Linked In profile, available here.
Yes – LegalZoom carefully describes the nature of our products and services on our web site. I notice that Mr. White does not post the terms of his written fee agreement on his site, and I’d venture a guess that it contains a lot of disclaimers and legal boilerplate as well.
While no one – not even a lawyer – can guarantee that a last will won’t be challenged in court, LegalZoom has helped over a million customers protect their family over the past decade. We also offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee and list the prices for every product. Nowhere on Mr. White’s web site do you see anything about how much he charges, or what his average bill was for the last 20 estate plans he drafted.
I guess I can conclude my reply the same way that he concludes his original posting – Confidence inspiring, no?
Chas Rampenthal
LegalZoom.com, Inc.
Vice President and General Counsel
Mr. Rampenthal,
thank you for taking the time to give us your input. I’m kind of flattered, honestly.
Let me start by revising a couple of things: first, you are correct; not all estate planners dislike your company, just nearly all of the estate planners that I have talked to about it. And second, I should avoid using the word “hate.” Too polarizing and cumbersome a word. So I apologize for that.
I understand that not all EP lawyers with blogs write about LZ, but a lot of them do. As you said, blogs are a way to help our clients. And personally, dispelling notions about what LZ is through your disclaimer is a way to help clients, and hopefully grow my business as a result. My post was designed to showcase the true nature of your company: a document distribution service/data entry website. This is important becuase your company is the big dog in the industry, and when everyday people think about getting a will put together, they typically think of LZ right away. I felt it necessary to give the few people who read this blog a moment of pause in that regard. Not because your company provides its service poorly, but because most people don’t understand what the service that you provide actually is. This isn’t because your company is evil; in fact it is probably a testament to your business plan and marketing strategy. Bully for you, I say.
But my main gripe still stands. Where I noted above that:
“Legalzoom advertises itself as a one-stop resource for legal services. Its commercials make it out to be an attorney-substitute service that satisfies your legal needs at a reasonable price. But its disclaimer makes clear that it is nothing more than a document warehouse. It treats major concerns like “legal sufficiency” as a trivial matter that you as the consumer needn’t worry about, so they simply bury it in the fine print.”
This is obviously my opinion, sir, but I stand by it.
You point out something about me and my firm which is completely fair game:
I have been in practice for less than a year. This is true, but it is something that I cannot control. I don’t hide that fact from clients, either, and I believe that my rates reflect my level of experience. I will say, though, that I am fully qualified to provide legal advice and estate planning guidance in the State of Minnesota. And that is really the issue when it comes to will drafting or estate planning: being qualified to give legal advice and perform legal services for the client with whom you are working. Your company can’t do that because it isn’t a law firm, and that is my chief point. So while you and your company are certainly more experienced and accomplished than I am in many ways, you aren’t licensed to provide legal advice to any clients in Minnesota. And I am.
I respect your input, Mr. Rampenthal, and I thank you for posting. You are always welcome here!
Tyler White
Dear Mr. Rampenthal,
There is nothing worse for a company than when one of its employees tries to defend its company and in the process only hurting its image more. I recommend you seek the advice of a public service firm before publicly posting on behalf of your company as in my opinion they would have stopped you from embarrassing yourself.
While I can you see why you would think you did a good job in defending your company and in turn trying to lower the public confidence in a small St. Paul firm let me show you how in my opinion the general public read your post:
“Dear small law firm, your comments said the exact truth about our giant company and it did not make us look very good so now we are mad and we are going to try and change the subject of the discussion and make you look bad in the process so we can safe face and hurt you back”
Mr. Rampenthal, while there is no doubt in anyones eyes that your company does provide some sort of service to the public, your comments to this post/subject were childish, petty and small. I would expect much more from a company and a person of your experience. All you did here was give people another reason as to why they should choose another brand to work with other than Legal Zoom. Who would anyone want to work with a brand that acts the way you just did? Luckily for you I doubt this blog gets much traffic so you are safe to respond the way you did without much public backlash.
With that said in my opinion from what I read this blog post was about the image your company tries to portray to the public and Mr. White simply tried to protect the public and let them know the exact truth so the public can make their own judgement. Your brand actually wasn’t hurt by Mr. White’s comments as all it did was provide clarity on the services your company provides. But sadly you did not see that and instead of responding in a professional manner you tried to make it personal and throw Mr. White and his experience under the buss in the process.
For that I say, “Shame on you!”
The only thing that hurt your companies image these past hours was not Mr. Whites comments but in fact it was you.
Hopefully in the future Legal Zoom will think better about how to promote and defend its services.
Just my opinion.
Sincerely
John Warne
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Dear Mr. Rosenthal,
Rather than reiterate what Mr. White and Mr. Warne have said in response to your comments, I will point out something else: not all attorneys charge an hourly rate. Family law attorneys do, by and large, because there’s no way to gauge how many hours an attorney will spend on custody and divorce matters. It is impossible to know how many hours they will have to spend arguing that their client should get the stupid birdbath in the division of assets (yes, that actually happened). For that reason, many people are forced to represent themselves.
Estate planning, on the other hand, lends itself well to flat fee billing. I worked at an estate planning firm during law school and my employer set his rates based on the complexity of of the client’s estate planning goals and their financial circumstances. He charged less for a young couple with a newborn and few assets than for an older couple that wanted to provide for their family members and their horses. For my former employer or Mr. White, posting rates online would serve no valid purpose because they cannot explain to someone online or over the phone what their rate will be without knowing how much and what kind of work is required. The law is not a one-size-fits-all approach.
As an attorney, I practice consumer law, including debt collection defense, plaintiff’s side consumer protection cases, and Chapter 7 bankruptcy. I charge flat fees for defense work and bankruptcies, but the price varies based on the individual circumstances of that case. For clients who cannot afford full representation or only want assistance with a particular task, I offer what’s called “unbundled legal services,” meaning I provide limited-scope services for that client (so long as it is allowed in my jurisdiction for that type of situation). My retainer agreement is one to two pages and is tailored to the specific circumstances of my client’s case. The agreement is in plain English and doesn’t include boilerplate language that doesn’t apply to the client’s situation and would serve no purpose but to confuse the client.
That is the joy of being an attorney licensed to practice law in Minnesota, one who can provide individualized services that meet the client’s needs. Mr. White enjoys that same ability to serve clients. And if one of us screws up, the client can seek redress in a court of law. We can be sued and our malpractice carriers can be forced to compensate for our errors. Who will LegalZoom.com customers (they are not clients) sue when their boilerplate documents don’t accurately reflect their wishes and cause harm to themselves or others (such as their intended beneficiaries)? Who will they sue when their employment agreement gets them sued for discrimination? Your disclaimer makes clear your company takes no responsibility for its errors, although a court of law may disagree.
Sincerely,
Anne M. Hansen
P.S. To save you the bother of tracking down my credentials, I graduated from William Mitchell College of Law (St. Paul, MN) in May 2008 and obtained my license to practice law in Minnesota in October 2008. Like Mr. White, if I do not know the answer to a client’s question or am uncertain of the best method of protecting the client’s legal interests in their individual circumstances, I can call upon colleagues here in Minnesota to provide guidance. That’s what lawyers do, they help each other provide the best representation possible. Who do your customers call upon when they don’t know how best represent themselves as they’re entering data on your legal forms?
EDIT: I meant Mr. Rampenthal, not Mr. Rosenthal. My apologies for the error.
Does anyone know of a place I can get an Estate Plan done? I’ve heard of some options online that seem to be affordable and will get me what I need.
On the other hand, I wouldn’t mind finding a small local firm with a younger attorney trying to jump start his/her career that I could work with.
Any recommendations would be great. A+ BBB rating preferable. Thanks.
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@Anne- Thanks for posting and sharing your thoughts; well said.
@Reid- Welcome, and please come back often.
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