On June 21, three New Jersey Supreme Court committees—the Advisory Committee on Professional Ethics, the Committee on Attorney Advertising, and the Committee on the Unauthorized Practice of Law, issued a joint opinion, pursuant to request from the New Jersey State Bar Association, that New Jersey lawyers may not participate in the Avvo, LegalZoom or Rocket Lawyer plans.

The committees found that these “online, nonlawyer, corporately owned services that offer legal services to the public” did not, in varying circumstances, meet the rules of professional responsibility in New Jersey. In particular, they found that the Avvo business model violated Rule of Professional Conduct 5.4(1) that prohibited a lawyer sharing fees with a nonlawyer. They further noted that Avvo's “marketing fee” paid by lawyers to Avvo was an impermissible referral fee, and LegalZoom and Rocket Lawyer had not registered as required by the rule governing legal service plans.

The committees' conclusion is in accord with the New Jersey rules of professional conduct, but the problem of access to justice persists. Traditional models for delivery of legal services are not meeting the needs of the public, both consumer and business. While some two-thirds of American lawyers are either solo practitioners or in small firms, and therefore assumed not to charge the rates of “Big Law,” there is still an identifiable “justice gap,” where whatever the supply of lawyers, they are not meeting demand. That gap extends to small businesses and individuals who might otherwise be thought to have the means to engage attorneys, but do not. In 2016, the ABA's Commission on the Future of Legal Services issued its own report, and estimated 80 percent of the “poor and those of moderate means,” lack “meaningful access to our justice system,” and recommended innovate approaches to address the issue. It further noted that “[t]he traditional law practice business model constrains innovations that would provide greater access to, and enhance the delivery of, legal services,” and that “[t]he legal profession's resistance to change hinders additional innovations.”