Northwest Registered Agent, a Spokane, Washington-based provider of registered agent and corporate filing services to customers across the nation, has launched Law on Call, the first entirely nonlawyer-owned law firm in the United States. Licensed in Utah and headquartered in Salt Lake, Law on Call will increase Utahns' access to justice by offering legal services at traditionally impossible speeds and prices, the company claims. Clients will pay only $9 a month to receive unlimited phone access to licensed lawyers who can offer legal advice. Legal work, if needed, will be available starting at just $100 an hour with no retainer required.
“In the traditional legal services world, potential clients have to jump through numerous hoops before they even speak to a lawyer and get their first question answered,” said Northwest Registered Agent in a press release. “Ultimately, many businesses and individuals in the U.S. forego hiring a lawyer because it requires too much work and too much money. This shift in process and priority puts Law on Call at the forefront of a new era in the legal industry — one that’s more efficient, less expensive, and geared toward clients’ real-world needs.”
Law on Call is able to operate because of a unanimous August 2020 Utah Supreme Court decision that resulted in the Utah Regulatory Legal Sandbox. This two-year pilot program, overseen by the Office of Legal Services Innovation, allows approved applicants to experiment with alter ways of delivering attorney services. The overarching goal is to make legal services available to a wider swath of the population, promoters of the Utah Regulatory Legal Sandbox have said.
“The United States justice system is hard to get access to,” said Drake Forester, chief legal strategy officer for Northwest Registered Agent. "By changing the traditional playbook, we're trying to shake some sense into an antiquated system."
The pressure on lawyers to increase billable hours is often what drives up legal costs for clients, so Law on Call has done away with this system, Forester said. Instead, clients get instant access to licensed lawyers who can offer legal advice in the areas of business law, end-of-life planning, contracts, employment, housing and real estate. Clients then have the option to hire those lawyers to do legal work at steeply discounted rates.