Thursday, February 18, 2010

14th Entry: OLA: Online Legal Aid

In my desperate attempt to finish my SLR with the help of Google.com, I stumbled upon this online forum with a long thread of questions and answers about everything concerning Philippine law- the entries ranging from the highly mathematical questions on successional rights to mundane tips on how to survive law school. Most of the answers and legal advice are actually given by lawyers and law students. A few more web-browsing, in fact, would reveal that there are several more Filipino lawyers offering these kinds of online legal services. (I will not post the link here, but it’s pretty easy to look for these websites in Google.)

Free online legal advice is indeed another innovative tool of reaching out and making the law more accessible to ordinary persons. Now, you do not have to tune-in to your favorite AM station and broadcast your legal dilemma for the whole world to know, nor look for offices and agencies offering free legal clinics, and spend precious time and money going there for legal consultation. Technology has made the law readily available to layperson by making legal information just one post or email away.

Unfortunately also, there is a thin line that divides public service and implied legal solicitation. The Court, in Ulep vs. Legal Clinic Inc., has already articulated its firm condemnation of advertisement and solicitation, the reason being that the practice of law is not an ordinary business, but is a noble and exalted profession. Technology may have made the law more accessible, but at the same time it became an additional medium for unscrupulous lawyers to clandestinely advertise and solicit. Given the fact that it is very easy to go anonymous over the web, coupled by the ease in removing or deleting data posted in the Internet, websites offering free legal advice may pose some regulatory problems for the OCA.

Another problem involves verification. Again, given the anonymity involved in Internet transaction, how can a person be sure that the supposed “lawyer” giving him free legal advice is indeed a real lawyer, or perhaps a person who is actually knowledgeable of the law? These are just a few of the issues posed by these online legal services.

Now, if only these online legal aid can also help me with my SLR…

(Source: photo: http://www.linnanlaw.com/uploads/images/file/image/Free-Legal-Advice-II.gif. Photo for aesthetic purposes only. Picture taken from a firm based in the US. The US does not have the same strict rules on advertisement as that in the Philippines)

1 comment:

Owen Ricalde said...

dapat gagawin ko itong entry pero use scholar.google.com. lahat ng scholarly papers naka pdf file na when u search. very helpful lalo if ur not just looking for legal papers.

i was also doing research for advertising for lawyers. i think its just a matter of lobbying in our part. there is always the other side of the coin. in the 1970s, US decided that lawyers can advertise their profession as part of free speech. and now, each state has a guideline on how they can advertise - may it be online, below the line or above the line media. hmmmmm, dapat cguro nga ganon na rin tayo.