The problem is that non lawyers are not allowed to own law firms. And what lawyer wants to work over low cost chat sitting in a room all day? That's part of why this sort of service doesn't and will not exist.
State bars don't want outside investors or non-lawyer executives directing the conduct of lawyers. (Also, why would you want to allow non-lawyer ownership of law firms? The reason you have corporate structures is to be able to raise capital. Law firms require very little capital.)
Law as currently practiced, does not require much capital. You're correct about that.
But legal services in general are an expensive, labor-intensive craft industry. Just like any craft industry, there's probably scope for low-touch industrialization alongside high-end bespoke craftmanship. Clothing is a good example of what I'm talking about--rich people have tailors, everyone else buys off the rack. What you have now in law and may other professions only works for the high-touch case.
Atrium (google them) is trying to get around this by having a traditional high-touch law firm use a lot of software provided by a standard silicon valley-financed venture capital startup. They're basically laundering legal fees to the startup side via the law firm. I'm not sure of the exact legalities but we need more stuff like this.
Access matters. A system that, for completely well-intentioned reasons, attempts to guarantee that everyone only gets the best, means the low end will never have access at affordable rates. It's simple economics. Until practitioners work for free (they won't), or there's some way to do things more cheaply, the bottom won't get served.
The atrium model isn’t problematic at all. Law firms use software built by third parties all the time. (West Law, document review platforms, etc.) You don’t need to permit non lawyer ownership of law firms to have that.
“Also, why would you want to allow non-lawyer ownership of law firms?”
For the same reason or not-reason you can have any other company owned by people who are not experts in the company’s subject. This is probably good for lawyers but otherwise this restriction makes no sense.
Hey remember how intel suffered for years under CEOs who were chip engineers? And then started doing really great when they moved away from that model and started hiring MBA CEOs?
If law firms run by lawyers run better, then why do they need a rule to enforce this? Shouldn't the market take care of this? ie Law Firms with Lawyer owners will simply out compete clueless Law Firms with owners who are not lawyers.
Because you're not optimizing for the success of the law firms or their clients, but for the structure and integrity of the court system. That integrity depends heavily on the fact that lawyers are trusted repeat players who have a lot of exposure and are personally on the hook for any problem. (Moreover, because a law license is not a right, the due process requirements and burden of proof for disciplining lawyers is far lower than for imposing criminal penalties on non-lawyer individuals. You don't need a trial, you don't get a jury, there is no "beyond a reasonable doubt." Supervising lawyers can be held liable for the misconduct of their subordinates with little showing of knowledge or intent regarding the misconduct.)
"Better" is a value judgement, and the specific value you've chosen is "makes more money". One concern, I think, is that a non-lawyer may push employees towards legally-unethical behavior. Since the non-lawyer can fire the lawyers, that gives them a big stick they can use to influence the employees.
Lawyers are subject to ethical requirements that are not imposed on non-lawyers. And those ethical requirements are just that - requirements. If a lawyer breaks them, they jeopardize their entire careers. There's no equivalent for a professional CEO. Clients insist that their attorneys act in a fiduciary capacity.
This is very different from the chip engineer scenario. It is the most important reason why non-lawyers are not allowed to own law firms. Because non-lawyers are not bound by rules that require them to put profit motives second in many circumstances.
Capital is only one of the things a founder brings in - a point of view and skills are others. The legal profession could be missing out on avenues of innovation by requiring a founder to be a lawyer.
