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For Oregon State Bar President Mitzi Naucler, one of the biggest issues facing Oregon law firms today is the competition posed by a growing do-it-yourself market for legal services. The demand is driven by consumers drawn to a convenient, inexpensive means of handling legal issues ranging from creating a will to filing for a divorce.

Naucler notes that the sheer mass of legal documents available online, along with the bumper crop of Internet legal services that have sprouted in recent years, should lead law firms to take a closer look at how they communicate the value of their services.

鈥淚t鈥檚 more incumbent than ever for lawyers to distinguish why it鈥檚 important to have a lawyer rather than doing it yourself,鈥� she said. 鈥淎nd everybody is going to have to be more efficient and effective.鈥�
Naucler鈥檚 sentiment is echoed by legal industry observers at the national level, who kicked off 2012 by asking law firms how much business they will lose to the expanding cadre of DIY services this year.
It鈥檚 a booming market for investors as well. Last summer, Forbes magazine reported that Google Ventures was among the companies that invested $18.5 million in the online legal service Rocket Lawyer. In addition, LegalZoom raised more than $66 million in venture capital last year.

As these and similar online sites ramp up the variety and volume of DIY legal documents they produce, law firm management professionals warn that lawyers need to become more aggressive in marketing a specific message. While DIY forms may be inexpensive and convenient, there is plenty of room for error and nothing can match the value of an attorney鈥檚 expertise.

Richard Granat, co-chairman of the American Bar Association鈥檚 eLawyering Task Force, says the next step is to educate and encourage more law firms to offer unbundled services online with the added benefit of being able to have a lawyer review the documents and provide advice along the way. Granat is credited for pioneering the virtual law office and is president and CEO of DirectLaw Inc.

鈥淭he efficiencies and service quality benefits of web-enabled document automation have been well documented elsewhere,鈥� Granat wrote in an ABA article last October with fellow task force co-chairman and attorney Marc Lauritsen. 鈥淚t is only a question of time before widespread adoption by law firms of all sizes, but particularly by solos and small firms, occurs.鈥�