Matt Reed: Is your ‘Florida’ lawyer any good?
Florida law, including consumer rights, insurance regulations and rules of evidence, changes all the time.
Which is why Melbourne attorney Steve Charpentier and other Florida lawyers have been debating real and proposed changes to the legal industry. Charpentier is a trial attorney who has been active in public affairs. He has led efforts to screen and nominate judges and served on the Board of Trustees for Eastern Florida State College.
I asked him to explain the changes during an interview on “The Matt Reed Show,” now posted to FloridaToday.com.
Question: The Florida bar is considering allowing “reciprocity,” admitting out-of-state lawyers to practice here and vice versa. Why would that matter to the public?
Charpentier: The Florida Bar Vision 2016 Commission Survey took a look at the practice of law to see what we could do to bring it forward. Some things are good, some not so good.
Currently, to be a lawyer in Florida, practicing every day and representing people, you have to be licensed by the Florida Bar. That means you go to an ABA-accredited law school, you get an extensive background check and you have to pass an exam that deals not only with general law but Florida law.
Reciprocity, which goes on around the country, allows you to waive into a state if you are in good standing and don’t have any grievances. But Florida has reciprocity with no other state.
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Q: So, some Florida lawyers think it would be a good idea to let others in so they can practice elsewhere?
Charpentier: Very few Florida lawyers feel we have a need for reciprocity. We have over 87,000 lawyers in this state who can actively represent clients every day.
What reciprocity would do, I think, is cater to large, out-of-state marketing firms that are targeting the Florida legal consumer. Most good lawyers don’t want to see the legal consumer, who in my mind is a “client,” become a “customer.”
When you hire an attorney, you’re not walking into Walmart to buy a quart of oil. When you hire me, you may be baring your soul in terms of personal issues, personal problems and sensitive matters to you and your family. You need a fiduciary relationship.
Q: So, you’re afraid of discount legal services where most legal work is done by paralegals or clerks?
Charpentier: What could happen is, one company has one lawyer obtain the reciprocity license in Florida and then they start marketing themselves as a Florida law firm.
We don’t have a shortage of lawyers in this state. We have a shortage of really good lawyers to serve specific areas of need. Instead of reciprocity, let’s up the ethics requirements. Let’s up the continuing education requirements.
You can be a great lawyer in California and have no idea what the tort law is in Florida. The time limit in which you can bring a lawsuit is different and varies from state to state. At trial, the rules of evidence are different.
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Q: National online services like LegalZoom.com offer consumers big discounts on straightforward documents like wills and business-license applications. They don’t claim to be lawyers. So what’s wrong with that?
Charpentier: There’s nothing wrong with it, and I don’t want to get into a battle with LegalZoom.
But if you’re going to use a site like that, read the small language. Make sure they’re not just a service that’s going to refer you to an attorney. Make sure you know, “Am I a customer, or am I a client?”
Q: There was a service called 1-800-ASK-GARY that advertised a lot in Central Florida. What was that?
Charpentier: Gary was a chiropractor who had a legal referral service.
What I tell people is, if you use a doctor or a lawyer, make sure you can get close enough to them to touch them. If you can’t get that close, in my opinion, you don’t have a fiduciary relationship.
See all columns and video by Matt Reed
Contact Reed at mreed@floridatoday.com. Follow him at Facebook.com/MattReedNews or on Twitter @MattReedWrites