For a long time, the “Starbucks lawyer” has been a running joke, a notion promoted by Future of Law types who contend that having a brick-and-mortar office is so 20th Century, and cool kids with a laptop can practice law from anywhere, to anywhere, any time, in their bathrobes. Because these lawyers, too impoverished to pay rent for a big boy law office, so adore a mocha frappuccino, they would set up business in the local Starbucks, because free wifi. After all, when you only have $5 to spend, wouldn’t a Venti be a better use of funds than wifi?
The joke, however, was on the misguided, if novel, grasp of what lawyers do and how they do it. That they happen to like Starbucks coffee wasn’t really the issue. It’s not my favorite cuppa, but to each his own. Given the right set of circumstances, the proper motivations, the idea of the Starbucks lawyer, much like the Wal-Mart lawyer, is not just fine, but a pretty darn good idea.
A Columbus Starbucks store will be the location of a new legal clinic offering free advice to military veterans.
Starbucks has partnered with the Ohio Military Veterans Legal Assistance Project to offer free, noncriminal, legal advice at a pop-up clinic at the Henderson Road Starbucks location.
Coined the “Veterans Second Monday Legal Clinic,” it will hold its first session on July 11 from 5-8 p.m.
Bringing law to where people are has a variety of virtues. It’s an efficient use of time. It breaks through a wall of excessive seriousness that can often prevent a person who has a meaningful question or issue from stepping forward and asking. It makes law, and lawyers, accessible to the public in a positive way, as opposed to the misguided DIY approach that so many think will help, even though experience is replete with proof that people, left to their own devices, get law horribly wrong constantly.
This isn’t a substitute for lawyers having offices, or lawyers having files, or lawyers doing serious work, and taking professional responsibility for what they do. It’s an adjunct, an “ease of use” addition to what lawyers otherwise do. There is nothing wrong with making lawyers more accessible to people who would otherwise have no one to turn to.
I’ve always wondered how anyone survives our society without a lawyer in the family to help with ordinary questions, given that there is no human conduct short of flatulence that doesn’t have legal implications. And even a fart can get you if done in the wrong direction.
In the same vein, there’s a new app that helps people fight parking tickets.
A free online chatbot laywer [sic] has managed to overturn a staggering 160,000 parking tickets in London and New York City, saving users an estimated £2.9 million.
The artificial intelligence bot was launched just 21 months ago and is touted as the “world’s first robot lawyer”.
DoNotPay uses a simple chat-based interface to guide users through a range of basic questions to establish if an appeal on their parking ticket is possible.
Yeah, the “robot lawyer” bit is the sort of garbage that the blithering idiots latch onto and turn something useful into something moronic. I wish they wouldn’t hype such garbage, particularly when they otherwise offer a useful app.
Parking tickets are one of those black holes in law. It’s not worth a lawyer’s time, or a defendant’s money, to retain counsel to fight the good fight. No lawyer is going to get rich fighting parking tickets. At the same time, many are crap, revenue raisers issued by callous, if not clueless, people named Rita. The hundred bucks wasted on buying off your freedom is flushed down the toilet if you didn’t do the crime. Or if you did, but had a defense.
So someone thought to create an app that walks you through the elements, the common defenses and how to document them so as to beat the ticket. That’s great! Silly as these things may seem to a lawyer, normal people don’t think in terms of elements, defenses and evidence. The worst that can happen is you don’t beat the ticket, and the best is that you learn what to do to fight it. What’s wrong with that?
Is it a substitute for a lawyer when your life is at stake? Hardly, but this is a parking ticket, not a capital prosecution. This fills a gap in the law that needed filling, and apparently provides a sufficiently sound how-to list to be pretty successful.
The app is free, which means nobody is getting rich on either end of the deal, but it makes no sense to pay $500 to a lawyer to defend against a $150 ticket, It would seem that the app is worth paying $25 if it works, and apparently it does. Who wouldn’t pay $25 for a better than 50/50 chance to save $150?
Is this “disruptive”? Does this “change everything”? Is this the future of law? Because someone wrote an app that does what a list on paper would do, except it’s on your smartphone instead?
If we cut the hype about Reinventing Law, and stopped pretending that every idea, good or otherwise, was going to be revolutionary and make some kid a gazillionaire, there are some utiliatarian ideas out there that would work, make people’s lives a little easier and actually help people.
The lawtrepreneurs cry that lawyers are so unwilling to adopt, so averse to technology, that their brilliant baby has no chance to succeed. No. That isn’t the problem, and it never was the problem. That’s just the bullshit these wannabe Zucks tell themselves rather than admit that their baby is ugly. We’re not averse to new ideas. We’re averse to stupid ideas. We’re averse to ideas that don’t work. We’re averse to unethical ideas. And we just don’t care enough about you to buy your ugly baby app so that you can buy a new bag of Cheetos.
There are good, useful, helpful new ideas out there, and that’s great for everyone. Unless you want to get rich, because all the profits will be going into a Grande soy mochaccino. That Starbucks coffee is way too expensive.
H/T Eric Mayer
“… free, noncriminal legal advice,…”? No, no, no,… it’s the free “criminal advice” we so desperately need. This so-called pop-up clinic is getting off to a bad start. And what ever happened to “pro bono”? We keep hearing about that and the ACLU. Our experience is that pro bono exists in the minds of delusional academics and otherwise intelligent people. As for the ACLU, it’s as useless as the ABA, an organization whose sole purpose is to vacuum up donations from the same delusional folks referred to above. Something like the Red Cross.
On the other hand, “Advice is only worth what you pay for it.” You won’t find us at any Starbucks pop-up clinic any time soon. And yes, the coffee is too expensive, and no better than that other coffee shop down the street.
I will happily give you all the pro bono advice you need. As soon as the supermarket gives me pro bono food, the gas station gives me pro bono gas, and that guy from Hong Kong gives me pro bono bespoke suits.
Because I took an oath to provide zealous representation, not poverty.
Edit: I realize that my flip response might be misleading. I would be very happy to do some time at a pro bono table (provided someone else set the gig up), though I’m not sure how useful it would be given that crim law happens in the trenches, not the coffee houses. That said, my preference would be Dunkin’ Donuts. I have standards.
We never promised you a rose garden either. Only doctors and professors are permitted to get rich off of other people’s miseries. Where we live, there are food banks and soup kitchens galore–one for each day of the week. No one is starving in our neighborhood, nor have we heard of such a thing outside of the food bank boosters.
Thirsty, yes; hungry, no! Affordable housing remains a problem. Prepare yourself for the inevitable merry-go-round and deluge of stewpid paperwork. Gasoline is relatively cheap at the moment. As for suits, they can be obtained for free, or cheap, if you know where to go. People die and leave their clothes behind, more than anyone can wear-out in a lifetime. Whether they fit perfectly is another question? If you happen to be a PD who graduated at the bottom of your class, you don’t want your suit to fit perfectly anyhow. Frumpy is de rigeur.
This could be why no one turns to your for sartorial advice. Or any other advice.
You do know how to hurt a guy. Dragoness was super today.
Just ask her out, already, Bill. Stop being such a wuss.
No, don’t. I’m already taken.
My dad got married in a Dunkin’ Donuts. It didn’t take. Jay Leno’s joke about it was, “they couldn’t afford Starbucks.”
I remember. I thought it was the coolest wedding ever. And while Leno went for the cheap shot, I’ve seen his Healey parked outside when they hold the half price Munchkin sale.
As someone who has played car hermit before, Starbucks is actually a pretty good spot to go for wifi, provided that one buys a regular coffee instead of something fancy. It’s going to be cheaper than a local coffee place with a decent ambience and reliable Internet. Going to McDonalds has the benefit of getting a drink and something to eat for a similar price, but the environment and the people usually leave much to be desired.
Car hermit isn’t a good thing. That the *other* other Starbucks lawyer.
Someone dropped me a link and I read the article on the “ChatBot Lawyer” last night. I did briefly wonder what you would think about it if you read the article, given that bright-eyed entrepreneurs pushing “legal tech” is one of your favorite topics. (See, it’s not always about me, sometimes it’s about you 😉
Putting my software engineer hat on, this particular entrepreneur hit one of my software hot buttons in a favorable way–if it’s a rote, repetitive, tedious task that requires no real thought, then it’s a task that can and should be automated. However, people often make the mistake of thinking that everything stupid or uneducated people can do is something that can and should be automated–which is not the case. Computers still can’t handle situations they weren’t programmed for, unlike humans. (If the solution to an unknown is “stop and call a human”, then you still need a human for the job)
Removing the software engineer hat, and putting on the “It’s all about me” hat, I prefer PJ”s to Starbucks, as the PJ’s barristas make an effort to get my special orders right, rather than blowing me off by telling me “we don’t make decaf” (not true) or “I don’t know how to do that” (who trained you?)
Cool story, bro-ette.
Sometimes I get the feeling you don’t like me…
It’s just Bill and his hormones. They give me the creeps.
I don’t get it. I’m as old as you are, grayer, and married.
Thanks for sharing. Sharing is caring. Now I’m sure you have far more important things to do with your time. Have fun!
Since this doesn’t appear to be coming across, you don’t add anything to a law blog, and, frankly, you are obsessed with yourself.
Don’t you be picking on Rita. She was lovely, and had many suitors!
That was just for you. “Made her look a little like a military man…”