Increased Litigation?
Full video of the CNBC segment “Street Fight: Point, Click, Sue”
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Who can I sue? Sound like the question of someone who is just out looking for a frivolous lawsuit? Possibly, but not to the founders of WhoCanISue.com, a website set up to assist those who are looking for legal advice in their specific area. Founded by Curtis A. Wolfe, former general counsel for Florida based Ener1Group, WhoCanISue.com aims to aid those who have grievances and vet them to ensure that they have an actual case and then connect them with a lawyer in near them. There are already several competitors on the market (such as SueEasy.com and LegalMatch.com), but according to Mr. Wolfe, his service works in real time to connect potential plaintiff to attorney immediately.
The new website plans to help consumers determine whether they actually have a case and help them find an attorney from a list of lawyers who advertise their expertise on the website. The attorneys will pay an annual fee of $1,000 to appear on the site, plus an additional amount of their own choosing that will determine how prominently they appear in the listings on the site. The website will vet the attorneys to make sure they are in good standing with their state bar associations.
Questions however are being raised in the wake of the new site to the validity of the service and whether or not it is doing more harm than good. Many believe that such a service would bring about even more frivolous lawsuits in our already litigious society.
The proliferation of legal matchmakers like Wolfe leaves some in the profession skeptical. “As if there aren’t enough lawyers out there inventing lawsuits, now we’re going to invite the public to do so,” scoffed prominent Miami trial attorney Richard Sharpstein, a partner at Jorden Burt. “I think this is nothing more than a referral service,” he says of WhoCanISue.com. “It encourages, if not creates lawsuits. 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.”
Recently CNBC ran a segment called Street Fight featuring senior partner Jeff Lichtman debating the issue with Susan Dwyer, a partner at Herrick, Feinstein. While they both agreed on a few of the core issues, the two separate over the need and whether or not it will actually create even more clogs in the justice system. Mr. Lichtman had this to say on the issue:
The idea that an individual can go onto the computer, and have several questions answered and from that link get to a lawyer who is prepared to answer questions and give advice, I think that is pretty amazing in our society. What makes you think that just because someone is sitting back in their house or their apartment who’s had i guess we’re talking about accidents here, who is hurt, is necessarily going to have a claim? The whole concept of frivolous when it comes to these claims is silly. Lawyers, although we do good and we do a lot of good, we’re not in it as philanthropists, and lawyers aren’t taking on cases that are frivolous. The idea, as i sit here in the stock exchange, is to make money.
Mr. Wolfe summed up his side of the argument in a Time magazine profile on the service with the following statement:
“With our system they can either find a lawyer or find out by talking to our lawyers that they don’t really have an interest in that case,” Wolfe says. “I don’t think WhoCanISue.com is going to, by itself, increase the number of lawsuits there are, but it may make people more aware of what their rights are.”
August 21st, 2008 at 5:30 pm
[...] week, senior TGL partner Jeffrey Lichtman was a guest on CNBC’s "Street Fight" speaking on the topic of websites that assist people in finding a lawyer. Here is the full transcript of the [...]