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Purchasing A $69.00 Will

Gregory Luce — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 16:07:42 +0000

I’ve posted the video of my journey through LegalZoom in my quest to draft and purchase an online Will, for a total price of $71.95 (price includes $2.95 for printing and shipping). The journey is part of an experiment to determine how an online forms business works and then to compare that process with obtaining a will more “traditionally”: that is, sitting down with an attorney to draft a Will for me [See prior post in this series here]

The video is somewhat lengthy (18 minutes), but I find it interesting and at times fascinating, not so much for what it does but for what it does not do – advise me on my choices (other than to highlight, for example, that 85% of respondents on other LegalZoom Wills answered a question a certain way).

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© Gregory Luce for Practice Blawg, 2010. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Do It Yourself, Drafting, LegalZoom, Pro Se

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Do-It-Yourself Legal Services

Gregory Luce — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 20:40:57 +0000

At last week’s Off the Clock #6, we got into a very interesting discussion about the number of solo and small firm attorneys (and perhaps big firm attorneys) who are competing with online “legal service” outfits such as LegalZoom, Nolo, and LawDepot.com.

An interesting experiment came out of that discussion, namely I agreed to buy my Will (I actually need one) through LegalZoom, record my process in doing so, and then compare the process and product with the process and product of obtaining a Will from one of my colleagues, who I will hire to draft a Will. Another Off the Clock participant agreed she would look at employment-related contracts and compare her own contracts and work product with that of an online ‘do-it-yourself’ vendor.

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Phoning the Jolly Troll

Richard Ericson — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 15:49:44 +0000

Warning: While this post targets one of the MSBA’s newest online offerings, it opens with warm, familiar Minnesota references – like a Coen brothers movie ^[1].

That’s because the subject – the Bar’s annual Bench & Bar directory issue – was itself a warm, familiar Minnesota reference. As in, a hefty reference book offering quick access to colleagues, courtrooms, and state offices. For a generation or four, Minnesota lawyers turned to it for a phone number, just as they might look up the phone number for the Jolly Troll ^[2] on Highway 12 ^[3], just across the street from the Cooper Theatre ^[4].

They might agree to meet a colleague at Southdale ^[5], perhaps under the birdcage or near the fish pond ^[6]. Or swap tickets for a Twins, Twins, or Twins game ^[7].

But it wouldn’t take a Weatherball ^[8] – with those snappy Weatherball lyrics in song or verse ^[9] – to forecast trends for print directories. Over the course of several years, Bench & Bar staff invoked several strategies to contain rising costs of the annual directory issue: Cheaper paper. Postal discounts. The costs always won.

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What’s New at practicelaw?

Nancy Hupp — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 15:32:37 +0000

In addition to shoveling and slipping, the practicelaw staff has been busy at work. Some of the fruits of our labor:

Online Directory – To save money and paper, the print MSBA Member Directory (traditionally Bench and Bar’s January issue) has gone the way of lickable stamps, replaced by a new and improved version. MSBA, court, and community connections are gathered, hyperlinked, and now posted on practicelaw.
Time’s Up Manual – The MSBA’s Civil Litigation section is now offering its popular Statute of Limitations handbook, Time’s Up, on CD. Information on both the print and CD version has been updated and posted (see right sidebar).
Site Map – Better late than never, we added a site map for those of you who want to get a wide-angle view of what practicelaw offers.
Source Column – On the various Forms pages, we’ve added a “Source” column that discloses the sources for our materials. Unlike the CIA, we don’t protect our sources, in fact, we like to give credit where credit is due. So, over the next several weeks, we will be adding links and information where we get (or how we draft) our forms. When we’re finished, you can click on the source icon and consider yourself in the know.

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Post tags: Developments, Fastcase, practicelaw

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Keyboard Shortcuts

Andrea Hable — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 19:48:03 +0000

Every month we get together with Minnesota State Bar Association members for Off the Clock, an informal discussion about tech tools for solo and small firm practitioners. Once a week we post either a tech or writing tip so you can better yourself two minutes at a time.

One of the best ways to save time is to use keyboard shortcuts. Your wrist and arm will thank you.

Don’t try to memorize all the shortcuts from the links above; find a set that you use most often.

My absolute favorite is Find (ctrl+f on a PC, command+f on a Mac). It works in almost every program, except when you have a PDF that doesn’t recognize the text. If you’re not sure if it’s working, try searching for a word you know is in the text to test it.(...)
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