12 Fall 2013 Columbus Bar Lawyers Quarterly

A recent article on the satirical website bitterlawyer.com suggested that a company selling legal forms has started installing vending machines around the country to enable the general public (particularly those without home internet access) to purchase common legal documents and pro se pleadings on the spot – no fuss, no mess, no J.D. required.

Lampoonists can never write fast enough to stay ahead of actual folly, and this is a classic example. A short Google scour will quickly reveal that the bitterlawyer folks are way slow in forecasting this phenomenon. Not only are the for-profi t pleading peddlers doing this, but courts themselves have joined in the act.

The Maricopa County Arizona court system, for example, has installed kiosks in convenient locations around the county to grind out a wide range of common legal documents for domestic, domiciliary, and debt cases. They charge a couple of sawbucks a pop for these legal masterpieces and use the proceeds to purchase more machines. The kiosks have a screen with video of a “lawyer” (played by an actor!?!) explaining how to use the forms. For an extra 75¢, the machine will also vend a pretty decent mocha latte. Other jurisdictions are looking into similar programs.

Somehow, this puts me in mind of a visit to Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco I made during the height of the hippiedom. Sitting in the middle of a crowd was a refrigerator shipping container with the crudely lettered sign, “Human Jukebox – Insert $1. – All requests Honored.” A steady line of folks lined up to stuff a buck in the slot. The guy on the inside would then strum his guitar and sing whatever song the client wanted, apparently, whether he knew it or not; it didn’t seem to much matter to anyone.

So why then, with all the un/under-employed lawyers among us these days, could we not bring interactive lawyering to the people who need it most using the same concept? Twenty bucks in the slot for a twenty-minute session with a real lawyer in a box located, say outside a Walmart or CVS. Overhead involved: a cell phone, an iPad, a battery operated printer, two stools and maybe a hand warmer. Earning potential: $60/hr.

OK, but what about the folks whose legal issues inhabit a more rarifi ed realm? Not to worry. Intelligence leaking out of Silicon Implant Valley suggests that help is on the way for the neglected top one per-centers.

Occasionally-reliable sources say that IBM’s Bunyanesque computer “Watson” and programmer

Ken Jennings have teamed up to do for Wall Street’s Daddy Warbucks what the Maricopian courts have done for Arizona’s Freddie Foodstamp. It is said they have designed a prototype avatar (working name “Wat-Ken”) based on (and housed in) a model of a senior partner of a white-shoe law fi rm. It (male and female versions will be available) is clad impeccably in Brooks Brothers and has the air of one who has just had lunch at the club with the Sultan of Brunei.

Clients will meet with Wat-Ken – no standing out in the rain at a kiosk for them – in a specially appointed Bentley limo with elaborate built-in countermeasures to prevent leakage of confi dential strategies. A masseuse will be on-board to alleviate stress as needed. Wat-Ken will be able to advise clients on mergers and acquisitions, hostile take-overs, patent & trademark piracy, the squirreling of assets in third-world countries, and the like. The fi rst iteration will not be able to appear in court, but that shortcoming is shortly to be remedied. It is not clear whether these avatars will be able to comply with all the provisions of the Model Rules of Professional Conduct or what sanctions can be imposed if they do not.

Seriously though, given the festering pool of unmet

legal need in this country, efforts to remedy at least some of that blight by providing reasonable means for self-help is the least we can do. In this pundit’s view, the legal profession should not be intimidated by, or rage against, mechanization and/or delegation of tasks that really are formulaic. Surely, lawyers have better things to do with their time and talents than worry about the threat of DIY law on that level. Worry instead about Wat-Ken.

bruce@cbalaw.org

GISMO, ESQ.By Bruce A. Campbell

Bruce A. Campbell, Columbus Bar Counsel