Delivering a Lawyer Within 15 Minutes (Soda Extra)

Delivering a Lawyer Within 15 Minutes (Soda Extra)
The New York Times by John Schwartz  -  June 16, 2011

The wheels of justice tend to be slow, but arrests can happen with lightning speed — and what happens next can be crucial. In searches, seizure and interrogation, things can go badly wrong. At that moment, a lawyer might help keep things from getting out of hand, asserting Miranda rights against interrogation or starting the bail process. But getting that lawyer is no easy thing, said Chris Miles, who co-founded a company, LawyerUp, to get lawyers on the case within 15 minutes. “If I want a pizza, I can get a pizza in 15 minutes,” he says. “I can get a plumber in the middle of the night. Why can’t I get a lawyer?” He co-founded the company in February, and started full operations this month in Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island, having built a roster of criminal lawyers who do not mind getting late-night calls. The service’s personal plan, aimed at young people, costs $4.95 a month. Those who do not have a subscription can pay a flat fee of $100 for the first call, which the company calls its “pay-in-a-pinch plan.” For all clients, an operator checks contact information and processes the lawyer’s initial fee of $250 on a credit card for the first hour of service. Perhaps inevitably, there is an app for that, already available on Android phones and under development for the iPhone. It is basically a panic button, speed-dialing the service. Lawyers do not pay to sign on to the roster, or for the client calls. Legal ethics rules frown on arrangements in which lawyers split fees with nonlawyers, and especially when lawyers pay people to round up clients — a practice known as using runners. A Connecticut lawyer who signed on, Patrick Tomasiewicz, said that when he got the call from the company, his main question was whether he would need to pay LawyerUp. The company satisfied him that its structure avoided runner issues. The legal profession tends to be wary of innovation, he noted, adding that he had found the LawyerUp process to be far less questionable than many forms of legal advertising he sees on billboards and late-night television. “I don’t have my name on a cab,” he said. No one has called him yet, Mr. Tomasiewicz said. “It may pan out for us. It may not.” Ralph J. Monaco, the president of the Connecticut Bar Association, seemed a bit ruffled in an interview when asked about the company, calling the name “so tasteless.” He said he fretted that it might create a relationship that an unscrupulous lawyer could use to gouge the new client. Does that mean lawyers like Mr. Tomasiewicz should worry about getting involved? “I don’t think so,” Mr. Monaco said. “I would want to see how it’s put into action.” Mr. Miles, who is not a lawyer, argued that it was the current system, not his company, that was open to abuse. “There has got to be something more fair than a pay phone and a phone book in a police station somewhere,” he said. The lawyers, he noted, had been vetted before being added to the list, and “I’d hire any one of these attorneys to represent me or my family.” So far, Mr. Miles said, 700 people have signed up and only a handful have made the call. And no, they do not want to talk about it.