Arbitration & Mediation

WhoCanISue.com - a sign of the Apocalypse?

By Christopher Annunziata

Albert Einstein is said to have remarked, ?It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.?  I cannot find a source indicating to what he was referring (it was likely the atomic bomb), but it could just as easily been about WhoCanISue.com.

Time Magazine reports that this “innovation” is the brain child of Curtis A. Wolfe, formerly general counsel for Fort Lauderdale-based private equity firm Ener1 Group.  Apparently Mr. Wolfe thinks that traditional ways of finding a personal injury lawyer — the back of the yellow pages, daytime TV commercials, the sides of city buses — are insufficient.  He must also distrust state or local bar associations, most of which have referral services stocked with names of competent, qualified counsel.

Wolfe claims that his service is free to the consumer and offers “real-time access to attorneys.”  As opposed to, say, a phone call to a local law firm.  I have never met a reputable lawyer who charges for an initial consultation.

Why is access to the courthouse a bad thing, you may ask?  As prominent Miami trial attorney Richard Sharpstein “scoffs” in the Time article,

Our country’s courts are clogged with unnecessary and frivolous lawsuits which delay, if not obstruct, the access to courts of people that really need to get there, that have serious legal grievances.

Even a law professor sitting in her ivory tower at Uinversity of Florida law school agrees that this website “is likely to increase the number of lawsuits.”

Parties with legitimate grievances should have access to the courthouses.  I wonder, however, whether there are so many legitimate cases languishing because the plaintiff could not find counsel.  Is this really a service needed?   Unlikely.

See also, Overlawyered.

Full post as published by CKA Mediation and Arbitration Services Blog on August 08, 2008 (boomark / email).