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.
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