It is legal services that take any significant amount of a lawyer's time that are the cause of the problem, and
not routine legal services which, for the most part, remain affordable.
It is
not a routine legal service.
Not exact matches
That is because they can at best make the law office more cost - efficient, which isn't enough to create affordable
legal services, other than
routine legal services, but
not legal advice
services.
To be valid it has to mean that a «charity ABS» can provide
routine legal services, and provide
legal advice
services below cost as a
service of the charity, union,
not - for - profit organization, or other CSO, that is providing them.
Legal Research is
not the only Support
Service, and only
Routine Legal Services Can be Automated
All that the ABS proposals will give them is the automation of
routine legal services, but
not any improvement in the affordability of
legal advice
services.
Such an institute could provide a single bargaining agency on behalf of all lawyers in Canada, by which to obtain the automation of
routine legal services, and
not have to endure ownership by a commercial investor to get it, as proposed by the ABS investors.
The purpose of ABS investors is
not to solve the problem but rather «to corner the market» for
routine legal services because that's where «the quick and easy money is.»
Not only have these changes helped us to become more efficient in delivering
legal services, but they have also helped to empower our 400 + clients to find solutions to
routine problems freeing the
legal team up to spend more time on more important matters.
The first duty of a Canadian law society is to solve the unaffordable
legal services problem — ABS's can't do that because
legal advice
services can
not be automated, they being the bulk of the problem,
not the lack of automation of
routine legal services.
That involved keeping all transaction - agreement drafting in - house, regardless of the size and profile of the deal, as well as standardising documents and introducing self -
service tools for clients so the
legal team was
not wasting time on
routine or less important matters.
[i] The «unaffordable
legal services problem» afflicts both kinds of
legal services: (1)
legal advice
services; and, (2)
routine legal services that don't require
legal advice.
But the problem of unaffordable
legal services is caused by the high cost of
legal advice
services,
not by
routine legal services such as simple real estate deals, divorces, and incorporations.
Note however, that the problem is caused by
legal advice
services, and
not by
routine legal services that are mostly
routine paper - work, such as simple house sales, wills, incorporating small companies, and such.
The Internet is
not only making it easier for non-experts to gain access to the information they need; it is driving a gradual expansion of automation from low - cost,
routine professional
services to more bespoke
services, especially as artificial intelligence (AI) becomes more sophisticated (e.g., IBM Watson's applications to the healthcare and
legal industries).