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Legal Commentary

: LawPundit

JustAnswer.com Legal Questions Answered Online : A Portent of Law Practice in the Future at the Simplest Level? or is it the Illegal Practice of Law?

By Andis Kaulins

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We have learned never to sneeze at new developments until we have examined them carefully. It is so easy to make judgments based on preconceptions, which often turn out to be wrong.

One area about which have been very skeptical is the use of the Internet as an online service for user questions to be answered by "experts", who are paid for their efforts by the questioner.

We have nevertheless discovered that there is a website at JustAnswer.com which provides"just" that question and answer service, also for elementary questions of law, which are allegedly answered online by attorneys.

We wonder how this matter is viewed by the various State bar associations, which are essentially archaic monopolies at their core, and protect their territory tooth and nail. When can and can not an attorney answer an online legal question as a matter of bar jurisdiction? Can he do it under his own name, or incognito, under an alias? Can such an attorney claim that no lawyer-client relationship is established? Does the reimbursed answer by online attorneys of law-related online user questions constitute the practice of law? Does the reimbursed answer of law-related online user questions constitute the practice of law also if the answerer is NOT a lawyer? Under what circumstances? For which jurisdiction? Does it depend on the domicile of the asker? or the State whose law is in question? What about federal questions? What standards apply?

Can an attorney claim that no direct attorney-client relationship has been established in spite of the fact that he or she is paid for the answers provided to legal questions raised at JustAnswer.com?

JustAnswer.com has the following disclaimer on its site at "Answer" pages:

"Information in questions, answers, and other posts on JustAnswer (?Posts?) comes from individual users, not JustAnswer; JustAnswer is not responsible for Posts. Posts are for general information, are not intended to substitute for informed professional advice (medical, legal, veterinary, financial, etc.), and do not establish a professional-client relationship. The site and services are provided "as is" with no warranty or representations regarding the qualifications of Experts. JustAnswer is not intended or designed for EMERGENCY questions which should be directed immediately by telephone or in-person to qualified professionals. Please carefully read the Terms of Service."

The JustAnswer Expert Agreement provides at 6. Expert Warranties:

"(b) You will not provide any legal or medical advice or other professional advice or information (such as securities, tax, psychiatry, veterinary, etc) that may only lawfully be rendered or provided by a licensed professional unless you are a licensed professional in good standing and you abide by all the rules and regulations of such profession."

That is clear enough. An online lawyer can legally answer only those questions which he or she can legally answer. But what questions are those?

Please be aware that we find the JustAnswer.com idea to be quite a good one and futuristic in its approach. Moreover, we are by no means a friend of the monopolistic bar associations, whose main purpose is to serve as economic barriers to entry and as generally unnecessary and ineffectual controlling institutions for their guild-like membership. There is for example no reason whatsover to exclude graduates of accredited law schools from practicing law until some bar association has obtained its pound of flesh. Nor should each State have its own bar association which can determine who can and who can not practice law in its State. It is all quite a monopoly scam, with State bar exams bearing little if no relation to the actual practice of law.

Nevertheless, given the present anachronistic realities, it would nevertheless appear to us that any legal advice given online for any kind of reimbursement, cloaked in the "expertise" of the law, IS IN FACT the practice of law, and thus in many cases prohibited in this form by the bar. Or are we wrong?