Law Students

Jake Warner Profile: The Self-Help Legal Trailblazer

By Bianca Moha

We all know that legal fees are sometimes unaffordable by those with limited income.

We all know some people will not have the capacity to hire lawyers and represent them in every dispute they may find themselves in.

So, placed in a difficult situation, these people turn to free legal aid given by the government. The problem however, is that there are thousands of low-income people needing legal assistance and there are not enough lawyers to go around - the outcome is a long waiting list.

One of the problems is that the legal aid system is limited in helping only the poor, which leaves out the middle class income earners who also need the financial help with their legal expenses, which can make these people unable to afford hiring private lawyers to represent them. This is where Ralph “Jake” Warner got his idea when he co-founded Nolo Press in 1971. He believes in reshaping the legal system and makes it easy for everyone to understand. The motto of the company is “Law for All”. Jake Warner believes that law is an integral part of democracy and he is passionate about it. His goal, achieved through Nolo Press, is to reshape the law by putting it in layman terms and make it easily accessible by everyone.

Jake Warner must have been greatly influenced by the prevailing “free living” concept of his era in 1966. The sentiment at that time was anti-corporate and all about communal living and free love. Many of his fellow graduates eschewed the traditional path out of law school of getting into the big law firms and getting big money. His classmates liked the idea of working pro-bono, helping others get legal representation at low costs or even free.

Jake had the dream of making law accessible to all and this goal has driven him to find a way to make it accessible to middle class income earners who were previously not qualified to get help from legal aid. In 1971, Warner and his business partner Ed Sherman, published their first book titled “How to Do Your Own Divorce“. The book was written by Sherman and for quite a long time they lugged cases and cases of this book door-to-door to various bookstores until they found a distributor that was willing to represent them.

Today Jake Warner serves as chief executive for Nolo Press, and they put out dozens of self-help law books a year covering varying topics such as landlord-tenant rights and estate planning. He remains aggressive and passionate about making law accessible to all by publishing books like “Nolo’s Quick LLC: All You Need to Know About Limited Liability Companies” and many more. His company also produces software, like “Quicken Willmaker“, which is a bestseller and they are also launching a bid to sell legal forms and products online.

Thanks to people like Jake Warner, people of limited means now have a choice when it comes to representing themselves in court. While no one will deny that the services of a lawyer are without comparison, NOLO has given people an option and has given many people a taste of the law - perhaps spawning more than a few future law students looking to further their legal education.

Jake Warner received his law degree from Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California at Berkeley and his undergraduate degree from Princeton.

Full post as published by Law Vibe on April 19, 2008 (boomark / email).