LegalForce, Rocket Lawyer, LegalZoom, LegalMatch and LegalReach are just some of the startups that aim to help people find an attorney, create legal documents through the Internet and even have their law questions answered free of charge, San Jose Mercury News reported.
Rocket Lawyer Founder and Chairman Charley Moore was quoted in the report as saying, "Main Street can't afford the law today." Moore started his career at Venture Law Group, a firm based in Menlo Park. However, he was inspired by FindLaw, a client that aids law firms in marketing themselves online and provides legal information to consumers. So it was in 2008 when he established Rocket Lawyer. With the financial backing of Google Ventures and other investors, the company launched a website that enables users to download legal forms and ask questions to prescreened lawyers for a monthly fee of $39, the report said.
One of Rocket Lawyer's customers was Camilla Fonseca who used the website to help her folks create their wills. The San Leandro resident told San Jose Mercury News, "Lawyers are not really in our price range. I just typed in 'will,' and it popped up all these categories. It starts prompting you through questions, so you can fill out the right form."
Raj Abhyanker, the Chief Executive Officer of LegalForce, said they want to change the way people access law. His career is a reflection of the entrepreneurial spirit at work in Silicon Valley: An engineer at Hewlett-Packard, he got his law degree and became a patent lawyer at a number of big companies. He then created a search engine in 2009 to allow trademark-seekers collect government data so they won't have to hire a lawyer to do the search. According to Abhyanker, his users were able to file 15,000 trademark applications worldwide in 2013 which was "more than any law firm in history," the report said.
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