Rocket Lawyer and the [San Francisco] Bay Area Legal Aid  have launched a pilot to provide affordable legal assistance. The company will train BayLegal’s attorneys on its platform and the two entities will explore creative ways to help low-income clients solve legal problems, they announced on Oct. 30.

“Our passion to make the law simple and affordable for everyone makes us kindred spirits with organizations like Bay Area Legal Aid,” said Rocket Lawyers’ general counsel, Alon Rotem, via press release.

Civil legal aid ensures fairness in the justice system, and every year legal aid nonprofits are only able to serve a fraction of the need,” said Alex Gulotta, executive director of BALA. “By harnessing the power of Rocket Lawyer’s platform, our partnership has the potential to amplify the number of clients we can help.”

The Recorder’s Patience Haggin wrote yesterday: “Low-income clients of Bay Area Legal Aid will get free access to some basic legal forms and tools through a partnership with online legal services provider Rocket Lawyer.”

“Rocket Lawyer has agreed to make landlord-tenant and family law forms available to Bay Area Legal Aid clients and to train Bay Area Legal Aid lawyers to use the online portal so its staff attorneys can efficiently steer clients to online help. These are the first steps in a partnership that Bay Area Legal Aid Executive Director Alex Gulotta hopes will lead to even more do-it-yourself legal help for low-income consumers. Rocket Lawyer is aimed at consumers and businesses with simple legal needs that can be handled through online forms or by a lawyer in its network.”

This week’s San Francisco announcement followed a long-anticipated Oct. 1 press release about a promised collaboration with the American Bar Association.

At the 2014 American Bar Association annual meeting on August 4, then president James Silkenat and Rocket Lawyer founder and CEO Charley Moore jointly announced that the two entities would launch a pilot project to “collaborate to test new ways to empower lawyers to deliver affordable online legal services to small businesses and the self-employed.  (See Game Change: ABA Pilots With RocketLawyer | Law Technology News“.)

The has promise came to fruition: The two entities announced via the Oct. 1 press release stating that “they have begun testing a joint venture that connects ABA-member lawyers in Illinois, Pennsylvania and California with small business-related legal questions through Rocket Lawyer’s cloud-based platform.”
“The new service, called ABA Law Connect, will be an affordable way for small businesses in those states to get answers to fundamental legal questions. For $4.95, a small business owner or representative can ask a question online of an ABA-member lawyer as well as a follow-up question. Those interested in additional legal advice can discuss legal matters further in a lawyer-client relationship,” they said.
The goal is to provide small businesses with affordable legal services while expanding professional opportunities for ABA members. “The three states were chosen for the initial test to provide geographical diversity and because of the strong ABA and Rocket Lawyer presences there,” the press release stated.

QUOTES

• “ABA Law Connect is an exciting opportunity for the ABA and Rocket Lawyer to assist small businesses, connecting them with ABA members, and represents one of many efforts by the ABA to improve access to legal services,” said ABA President Paulette Brown. “By providing a low cost, highly accessible, online avenue for small business owners to get answers to basic legal questions, we hope to improve access to legal services while simultaneously offering our members potential new opportunities.”

• “It’s always been Rocket Lawyer’s mission to leverage technology in order to bring quality and affordable legal services to small businesses. To be able to collaborate with such a longstanding and reputable organization as the ABA has been something we are particularly proud of,” said Moore. “ABA Law Connect will open up new channels for small businesses to get the professional counsel they need.” (Small businesses can access ABA Law Connect through the web link www.abalawconnect.com.)

MORE
• “Sleeping With the Enemy? Rocket Lawyer and ABA Team Up,” by Ben Barton, Professor of Law, University of Tenessee Colleage of Law,  in Bloomberg BNA’s Big Law Business.

• “ABA and Rocket Lawyer Launch On-Demand Legal Advice Pilot Program,” by Victor Li (ABA Journal)

•  Professional Responsiblity Blog, by Professor Alberto Bernabe (The John Marshall Law School)

• The Legal Reformer blog.

Monica Bay is a Fellow at CodeX and a freelance journalist for Bloomberg BNA Big Law Business. She is a member of the California bar. Twitter: @MonicaBay Email: mbay@codex.stanford.edu.