Just weeks after the Utah Supreme Court decided to
proceed with reform – the first US State to do so – it has granted a licence to Rocket Lawyer on the recommendation of the new Utah Office of Legal Services Innovation.
Rocket Lawyer already meets some of the legal needs of millions of US citizens and small business – with in excess of 20 million accounts in its home country already. Under the new licence Rocket Lawyer will be able to employ regulated attorneys to deliver legal services to its clients. Currently it sends its clients to a panel of attorneys. A more seamless service where Rocket Lawyer can enhance the customer journey and directly ensure that its standards of service are maintained will help customers and fuel further growth. The 20 million citizens and small businesses that Rocket Lawyer have already served will be a rich source of more legal work. Growth for Rocket Lawyer is access to justice for citizens and small businesses.
Many of the doubters of legal services reform in Utah and the rest of the US have suggested that permitting non-lawyer ownership will have little impact on the delivery of legal services to ordinary citizens and small businesses. It is an argument that, in England & Wales, we have heard again and again from the Law Society and other naysayers. But just as we found out here, great tech-led legal services do take advantage of reform to deliver new and imaginative legal services.
Clay Christensen’s landmark work on
disruptive innovation taught us that new entrants would use technology to deliver products that met client needs that the existing market failed to satisfy. The access to justice crisis is not only about representation in court – the vast majority of legal need is small scale problems that historically people and small business have handled alone: using google, friends and family to navigate legal forms and process. Rocket Lawyer’s suite of legal documents, delivered online with transparent and predictable pricing and great customer service have been the basis for entry into the legal market. With this Utah licence Rocket Lawyer will be able to move further up the value chain - just as Clay Christensen predicted.
In England & Wales, using reforms that allow solicitors to deliver regulated legal services to the public from an unregulated business, Rocket Lawyer have a mix of employed and freelance solicitors that are able to deliver most legal services to their clients. The experience and expertise that they have built through that will be applied as they develop a similar service in Utah. This is not about competing with local law firms handling major corporate activity, litigation and advocacy. It is about the day to day problems that citizens and business face; problems that traditional law firms are simply not set up to satisfy in a proportionate and affordable manner.
In addition to
legal advice through the Rocket Lawyer On Call® network, Rocket Lawyer offers natively digital legal documents covering a wide array of legal situations, including
wills,
lease agreements, and a multitude of
business contracts, alongside business legal services like
incorporation and
trademark registration. Rocket Lawyer is also offered as an
employee legal benefit to companies of all sizes.
Rocket Lawyer has moved quickly. They have recruited Utah lawyer, Matthew Tenney, who has extensive experience across corporate law, to head the service. This is only the start for the company. It has signalled its interest in Arizona, where the State Supreme Court
unanimously approved even more radical reform in recent weeks. Other States will observe the impact of reform and their Supreme Courts, tech businesses, innovative lawyers, businesses and citizen groups will start to demand similar opportunities.
As Rocket Lawyer continues to grow and thrive it will continue to invest in technology that automates legal advice. Rocket Lawyer's ability to scale the distribution of online legal services will continue to revolutionise the legal sector. Its innovations in legal technology are putting affordable legal help within reach—anywhere in the world, on any device. The advantage of scale is that it has the data on the most asked questions, the answers that lawyers provide, along with the nuanced understanding that allows staff and systems to refine, tailor and personalise answers. Over time that pushes down costs – it is sophisticated tech-led knowledge management as the basis for low cost legal services. And it is the basis for more complex and bespoke services further up the value chain.
Rocket Lawyer is establishing itself as one of the most forward-thinking legal businesses across the globe. Strong investment from a range of major investors over the last ten years has supported its growth. Some have worried that private equity or venture capital will drive down ethical values but there is no evidence of that. In fact Rocket Lawyer has provided free legal services during COVID19 pandemic in the US and UK – being ethically driven, client focused and innovative turns out to be a good route to growing revenue.
"We've seen first-hand how regulatory reform can allow for efficient, scalable, and innovative delivery of legal services to small businesses and families, expanding access to justice and making the law more affordable for all," said Rocket Lawyer Founder and CEO, Charley Moore.
"With the guidance of Passmore Consulting, we've been able to take what we've learned in England to help set the example in the United States. We are thrilled to participate in Utah's innovative regulatory sandbox and absolutely expect to participate in Arizona, as well."
Other firms – local and national, new and old - will follow Rocket Lawyer but it has first mover advantage in the US. With imagination it can explore delivering services from this hub into other US States. States that resist this will simply be bypassed.
