Long time readers of this blog know that I have been following and writing about the debates related to Avvo Legal Services for some time now. For an article on my position on the subject go here.
As you may remember Avvo has attempted to argue that lawyers should not worry about participating in Avvo Legal Services because doing so does not violate rules of professional conduct, or, if it does, because the rules are unconstitutional. Yet, all the opinions issued so far have concluded that Avvo is wrong. And that is because under the current regulatory scheme in pretty much all states, Avvo’s arguments are weak.
Having said that, however, note that the key to the previous statement is “under the current regulatory scheme.” Saying that participating in Avvo Legal Services would violate
the rules is not the end of the debate. The more interesting question is
whether the rules should be changed to accommodate what Avvo wants to
do.
Today’s update on this story is that instead of continuing to argue that the rules don't apply or that they should be ignored, Avvo apparently has been trying to convince the North Carolina regulators to change the rules. As a result, North Carolina may soon become the first state to change the regulatory approach in order to formally make it acceptable for lawyers to participate in services like Avvo Legal Services. (Interestingly, as you might remember, North Carolina also amended its definition of the “practice of law” as part of an agreement with LegalZoom.)
According to documents I have reviewed, as a result of meetings between Avvo and a committee of the State Bar Association, the committee has drafted a proposal to amend several rules of professional conduct, including Rule 5.4, which bans splitting fees with non-lawyers. The proposal would add a new paragraph to the rule to state that “a lawyer may pay a portion of a legal fee to a credit card processor, group advertising provider or online platform for identifying and hiring a lawyer if the amount paid is a reasonable charge for administrative or marketing services and there is no interference with the lawyer’s independence of professional judgment or with the client-lawyer relationship.”
Adoption of this new rule would be good news for Avvo, but would not necessarily clear the way entirely. One point of contention within the committee was whether Avvo’s rating system operates as a recommendation to consumers which would result in a violation of rule 7.1 if lawyers were to pay Avvo for recommending them, particularly since Avvo does not disclose the basis of the rating system. Within the committee, this created a concern over whether Avvo is providing recommendations that are not based on legitimate criteria because the rating system is not transparent since it does not provide information on the factors used to create the rating.
To address this concern, there is now a proposal to add a new paragraph to the comment of Rule 7.1 to state (in part) that “A lawyer may participate in online directories and other rating systems that allow the lawyer to “claim” the lawyer’s profile and to provide information for inclusion in the profile or to be used to rate the lawyer. The information provided by the lawyer must be truthful and not misleading. No money may be paid by the lawyer for a rating and, before voluntarily providing information to an online rating system, the lawyer must determine that the rating system uses objective standards that are verifiable and would be recognized by a reasonable lawyer as establishing a legitimate basis for evaluating the lawyer’s services. . . .”
If it is true that Avvo does not disclose the basis of its ratings, I am not clear how a lawyer can meet these requirements.
Finally, as one would expect, another concern is whether allowing Avvo to retain the consumer’s payment until the lawyer finishes providing the legal services constitutes a violation of the lawyer’s duty to safeguard client’s funds in a trust account and to contribute the interest generated by that account to the state’s IOLTA program.
To address this concern, Avvo has suggested an amendment to the comment of the rule on safeguarding property, but it is not clear that the committee of the State Bar has adopted it. Avvo’s proposal is to add a new paragraph to the comment to read: “Client or third person funds sometimes pass through, or are originated by, intermediaries before reaching the lawyer’s account. Such intermediaries have traditionally included banks, credit card processors, or litigation funding entities, and have been chosen unilaterally by the client. However, newer intermediaries include attorney marketing programs, chosen by the attorney, that collect payments directly from clients and pass them through to the attorney. Attorneys have an affirmative obligation to ensure that such intermediaries 1) adequately protect client funds and 2) do not retain client funds for a period [of time] that materially impacts i) the client’s opportunity to earn interest on the funds, or ii) the availability of interest earnings for [state legal services organization that receives IOLTA interest, if applicable]. Absent other indicia of fraud (such as the use of non-industry standard methods for collecting credit card information), an attorney’s diligence obligation will be deemed met with respect to intermediaries that collect client funds using credit or debit cards and remit such funds to attorney accounts within [ ] days.”
As of now, I don’t know if the State Bar proposal will include this suggested language. It is not included in the copy I have, but there may be more documents I have not seen yet. Clearly, Avvo's goal is to exempt lawyers from having to deposit client money in a trust account, at least for some, as of yet not determined, period of time. For those who have argued the rules about trust accounts should be abandoned or relaxed, this would not be a problem. But for those who think they need to be followed strictly in order to protect clients, this proposal might be a problem. The North Carolina rules regarding trust accounts can be found here.
The documents I have seen about these proposals are all from within the last three months, but I do not know what is the current status of the proposals. It remains to be seen if they will be adopted by the State Bar Ethics Committee.
Stay tuned.
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