A Note to Florida’s Lawyers

I’ve spent more than twenty-five years working on a single problem: the distance between the people who need a lawyer and the people who can afford one. I’ve come at it as a legal-information pioneer, as a technologist, as a bar-committee member, and — most relevant to you — as a practicing lawyer who built one of the first online law firms in the country. JusticeXpress is what I’ve learned from all of it, put to work for Florida.

Let me be direct, because you’re a lawyer and you’ll see through anything else. The access-to-justice gap is usually told as a story about consumers. It is just as much a story about us. The same billable-hour model that prices a middle-class family out of hiring you also leaves capable lawyers with unfilled calendars, competing for a shrinking pool of clients who can sign an open-ended retainer. The problem was never the quality of our work. It’s the way the profession has been made to sell it.

Unbundling isn’t a discount on lawyering. It’s a different way to distribute it.

When you offer a defined service for a fixed fee — a document review, a consultation, a single appearance — you turn people who would never have called into paying clients, and you meet a demand that form websites and AI tools are otherwise capturing with no lawyer anywhere in the room. That isn’t charity. It’s a business model, and a durable one. The clients it reaches were never going to buy your hours; now they can buy your help.

I’ve watched this work firsthand. In 1999 I built the People’s Law Library of Maryland, now operated by that state’s courts. In 2003 I launched one of the first law firms in the country to deliver family-law services online. In 2009 I founded DirectLaw, a platform that helped hundreds of solo and small firms bring their practices online, and I spent twelve years co-chairing the American Bar Association’s eLawyering Task Force, nudging the profession — gently — toward the future. What I learned is that lawyers don’t resist change because they fear technology. They resist it because no one has shown them a version that respects their license, their judgment, and their livelihood all at once.

JusticeXpress is my attempt at that version. We built it as a public benefit corporation because the mission — closing the gap — is written into who we are, not bolted on for marketing. JusticeXpressFlorida.com gives the public free legal information and affordable documents; and when a person realizes they need a lawyer, it points them to you. The JusticeXpress Network is the directory where you list your fixed-fee, limited-scope services.

It’s a channel back to the profession — not a threat to it.

A few promises I want to make in my own name. It is a self-select directory, not a referral or matching service — consumers browse and choose, and we never route or recommend. We do not take a share of your fees, and we never will; any listing fee is a flat directory fee and nothing more. And listing is free — Verified is free for all of 2027 for firms that apply by December 31, 2027, after which the standard flat fee is $195 a year. A basic listing stays free, always.

If you’re already doing this work, I would be honored to have you as a founding member. If you’re simply curious about it, our Resources will show you how to deliver it well and within the rules. Either way, I hope you’ll see JusticeXpress for what it is meant to be: a way for good lawyers to reach the people who need them — and a chance, at last, to close a gap our profession has talked about for far too long.