Len: [00:00:00]
Welcome. My name is Len Lane, and I am the founder and president of Brokers for Life Inc., and we are Dominion Lending Centres in Western Canada. The topic of our podcast will be about what we consider to be Real Life Mortgage Solutions. Welcome back. We have a returning guest and a friend she brought along with her as well today. Some of you heard our conversation with Cyndy Morin before. Before, like, remember the one I called the most interesting lawyer in the world? If that was a beer commercial. And her guest today with her is Lori Robertson, who is on the board of directors of what we’re going to talk about, and that is Ask JAQQ Welcome.

Cyndy: [00:00:48]
Great. Thank you. Thank you for having us.

Len: [00:00:50]
Just, you know, kind of a background. And I asked you this before, but it’s like. So why do you think the Law Society asked… Stopped their reset before or the referral to lawyers.

Cyndy: [00:01:03] So the Lawyer Referral Program was a program run by the Law Society for 50 years. And I had a love for the Lawyer Referral Program that the Law Society had, because long before I ever even thought about being a lawyer, I used that program myself. And it was great in pointing me in the right direction of where I needed to go to deal with my legal matters. And when I couldn’t afford a lawyer, it was great because I was able to navigate the system a little bit with the information I received from the lawyer referral program. And then when I could afford a lawyer, it gave me an opportunity to talk to three different lawyers and see who I wanted to work with. Typically, how people find lawyers is by word of mouth, and then they pay for a consult. But when they get into that appointment, they may or may not want to work with that lawyer, but they’re already invested in the consultation fee. So it’s, you know, it’s kind of like, well, do I stay with them or do I find somebody else? And the Lawyer Referral Program always gave people an opportunity to kind of talk to different lawyers and see who they wanted to work with. And I don’t believe there’s any other program out there that has replaced the Lawyer Referral Program or operate similar to it. And that was the impetus leading behind Ask JAQQ. Part of the impetus, I should say. The other part is as a lawyer, I often get phone calls or messages through Facebook Messenger from random people who have gotten my number from somewhere, and they always start the conversation with, I heard you were a lawyer, and I just have a quick question.

Cyndy: [00:02:49] Very rarely are they ever quick questions, but when they are quick questions, you know, I’m able to help them out. Or if I wasn’t able to help them out, I used to be able to refer them to the Lawyer Referral Program. When I noticed how prominent the issue was, was I had taken some time off and moved to Egypt for a little bit, and I was still getting people reaching out to me over there saying, I just have a quick legal question, which is how we came up with the idea for a legal app that would be operated similar to the Lawyer Referral Program, only with a twist. So the twist in our app is that it costs the user $5.99 to ask just a quick legal question or Ask JAQQ. And in that process, they’re able to speak with three different lawyers through the platform on the app. But the best part for me is that 100% of those user fees are donated to Suggest, which is an organization that we’ve partnered with and they do domestic violence awareness, domestic violence prevention. And they support families experiencing domestic violence, not just the victims, but also, for lack of a better term, the perpetrators. So they work with the entire family as a whole or with individuals.

Len: [00:04:15] Yeah. And like I said, obviously a great cause and a great way to to promote this as well. Lori, your background is in IT, so drag you into the conversation as to how well the program is working. I guess as you as we get it launched off the ground here.

Lori: [00:04:35] Well, I would say this definitely speaks to me on a personal level having you know, experience with domestic violence in my life. So, I’m very passionate about the community outreach aspect of this as well as, you know, the fact that this is taking the fear out of legal help. You know, it’s making, I guess the whole process much more user friendly, with a low barrier to entry and essentially taking something that was in, once intimidating, you know, perceived as expensive and out of reach, simple and human. You know, it’s about access, empowerment, and impact, which really speaks to me.

Len: [00:05:19] Yeah. And, like I said, unfortunately, a need for it in, in the community these days and at all levels, it seems. What has been the response, Cyndy, to… from other lawyers?

Cyndy: [00:05:34] Well, the lawyers that we’ve been talking with, we haven’t actually advertised it fully to all of the lawyers in Alberta, but just by word of mouth while we’re while we’ve been doing beta testing, the lawyers are very excited about it because lawyers tend to get this bad rap perception that, you know, we don’t give our time away. We don’t help. And honestly, being in this profession, as long as I have, I see lawyers donate their time all the time, helping self reps, helping individuals. But nobody ever sees that side of what lawyers do. So lawyers are excited about the fact that they have a safe forum that they can go in to help individuals and, and show that, yes, we do actually care. But the process doesn’t make it very accessible for people to reach out to lawyers. And this bridges that gap. So the lawyers are excited about it. Not just for the fact that they may get potential clients out of it, but the ones that don’t actually need a lawyer, at least they’re able to help them in some way on their own self representation journey.

Len: [00:06:46] That’s a common point. I think everybody thinks that as soon as you open your mouth and start talking to a lawyer, that it’s going to cost you a small fortune, and in some cases it does. But there’s usually a reason for that. So, what’s the bigger picture? How big do you think this will be, and how long would it take for it to be all the way across Canada?

Cyndy: [00:07:08] So we’re starting the launch in Alberta and we have plans to scale all across Canada. And I think I personally think just from the response we’ve been getting by word of mouth without doing any formal advertising as of yet, I think it’s going to actually be quite huge. I keep having people reach out to me that have heard about the the app saying, when is it getting launched, when is it getting launched? People are eager to use it and are waiting for it to be launched. So with that in mind, we just made some extra changes to the app and we’re told that it’s probably going to be another three weeks before we do the second round of beta testing. But we’ve all dedicated a hard launch date of December 1st or sooner if we can get it out sooner, because people are anxious to get it and use it, and we’re anxious to see it flourish and take off and expand. And on that note, Len, I should mention that we chose Suggest initially because domestic violence programs are often underfunded and the need is huge. But just like Lori said, I’m also a survivor of domestic violence and it was Suggest that helped me leave an unsafe situation before I even owned my own law firm. And they were fantastic back in the day, they were known as peer support for abused women. But over the years, they’ve grown and they’ve become more inclusive to include all genders and rebranded with the name Suggest. So I have a personal attachment to the organization. But as we expand across Canada, the intent is to support local charities to where the users are. So it wouldn’t necessarily be Suggest, as the recipient charity, say, for Saskatchewan, it would be, you know, whatever is meaningful to the lawyers in that area and the users.

Len: [00:09:09] Right, so they could adjust it to the territories. You know, we do a lot of work with Little Warriors. So which is another facet of life that is underfunded but has come a long way because of support of different groups behind them, right? And that that’s always important for them to have that cash flow, if you like, for…

Cyndy: [00:09:31] 100%.

Len: [00:09:32] Lack of a better description, right? So yeah. And at $5.99 I’m not sure what, what portion goes to them. But, you know, there is some cost to doing this I’m sure, so.

Cyndy: [00:09:42] Well, the nice thing is 100% of those user fees is donated to suggest where we get our operational funding to keep the app going and whatnot is through the lawyers who are participating on the app. So, that also shows the commitment to the lawyers who are going to be participating in the program is that their subscription fees pay for the operation of the app so that we don’t have to take it out of the charities.

Len: [00:10:11] Excellent. That’s huge. So, Lori, she gave a date there. Does that sound reasonable for the tech side? I know.

Lori: [00:10:18] Well, yeah. You know, I’ve had a sneak peek and the app is, I mean, it looks great. It’s very, very easy to use. I think people are, they’re going to be impressed by it. And, you know, again, somebody who, you know, is not familiar with the law or lawyers and doesn’t even know where to start, this is going to be a go-to, right. You’re going to be able to interact with the lawyer, ask your question, you know, for as little as a coffee and a donut. So you know, it’s going to take the intimidation factor out of this completely. And a way to, you know, interact with not just one lawyer, but three lawyers. And then from there, you can determine, you know, if you want to enter into, you know, an agreement or to retain any one of those lawyers if you so choose to.

Len: [00:11:09] Right. Yeah. And that’s, I guess that’s… takes a little bit out of the vetting part to, you know, talk with three different lawyers. You can get a better feel, I guess, for, for who feels like, I guess, or sounds like, you know, someone you’d want to actually work with as well over the long run, so.

Cyndy: [00:11:29] Well, and in addition to that, when you talk about vetting lawyers through the app, all of the lawyers will be vetted, or sorry vetted as they sign up for the app to make sure that they are in good standing with their respective law societies. So that just adds an extra layer of protection for the public, knowing that all of the lawyers that are included in the app are licensed and insured and affiliated with their Law Society and are members in good standing, which is helpful because with any profession, it’s buyer beware, right? So having this extra layer of protection just gives that extra bit of confidence to the users to know that these are reputable lawyers on the service who, you know, are good to go and are trusted lawyers that are going to be put on the app. And anybody that has, you know, a lot of sanctions with the Law Society or perhaps are suspended or disbarred, but still practicing, we would know that before they sign up. So, as I said, that just adds that extra layer of protection for the public.

Len: [00:12:43] Yeah. And that, it’s always interesting. You don’t really know who’s been sanctioned until you actually go to the Law Society, because it’s not really always public information, right? So I look up lawyers all the time just because it saves me trying to figure out if they still have a fax machine. So cut and paste that.

Cyndy: [00:13:03] Well, and just to give you an example, I know of a lawyer years ago who was suspended for 18 months for misappropriating trust funds and later was reinstated and then just repeated that cycle. So that would be an example of somebody that we would not admit into the app. We don’t believe in giving people a second chance to do something wrong. And so even though he was reinstated, given the nature of his sanction and the length of his suspension, that is a candidate that we would not have allowed to operate on the app. So.

Len: [00:13:46] Right. So, also, I guess as part of that is that they are more, lean towards more towards family law than, than something else or?

Cyndy: [00:13:57] So initially I was going to just develop the app with the intent of it being used in family law. But the feedback we were getting was, you know, other lawyers said, hey, we would like to participate. This is a need in our practice area as well. And other people were saying, you know, we would like to be able to ask more than just family law questions. So that’s part of the delay with the launch, is that we wanted to make sure that we had it open to all practice areas. And we also want to make sure that we have enough lawyers signed up in each practice area so that we’re not having a lag with respect to what the users may need versus what we can offer. So we really want to bolster up those, the lawyer roster before we launch. So now that we’ve opened up to other practice areas, we’ve got to reach out to those other lawyers, get them in on the program so that we have enough supply to meet the demand, which I anticipate is going to be quite large.

Len: [00:14:59] Right? Yeah. I could even see it in real estate, because there’s always those questions that they ask me and I have to turn around usually and say, that’s a legal question. I can’t answer that due to the few licenses that I hold, which is about ten. But it’s like, yeah, you’re better to get the legal advice from a legal, from a law office, right? Not from me.

Cyndy: [00:15:25] And I should actually just clarify that when people are asking a legal question, lawyers cannot give specific legal advice without a conflicts check and a retainer in place, even if it’s a pro bono retainer. So just to clarify, when people are asking a legal question, they’re being provided with general legal information to help them figure out their next steps or just to give them general information about their area, because we are restricted from giving actual legal advice. The Lawyer Referral Program was the same way. So this is not anything unique to the app. It’s… any lawyer in Alberta wouldn’t be able to just answer a quick legal question specifically to your situation without, as I said, doing that conflicts check and whatnot. So we have to make sure that people are clear on that. That being said, most of the time people can get their questions answered in a general context and then if they have something more specific they would like to ask, they would have to engage that lawyer and take that further if there was an expansion on what they needed to do. So, just for clarity purposes, it’s not a forum where you’re going to be retaining a lawyer and asking specific legal advice. It is literally just there to ask a quick legal question, get some general information, and then, you know, let’s just go from there with respect to, do I need to retain a lawyer? Is this something I can do on my own? Or what is my situation and where do I need to go next?

Len: [00:17:05] Yeah, I get asked real estate legal questions. I’m going like you need to… You need your lawyer to do that, not me.

Cyndy: [00:17:12] Yeah, exactly.

Len: [00:17:14] Oh yeah. It’s… we’re… I think it’s going to be a very exciting opportunity for a lot of lawyers to, well, both ways to give back a little bit to as well as to, you know, possible clientele down the road. We both know the process can be very long. In some cases, we have some friends that are a couple of years into it. Right? So it’s always good to have that. Maybe that availability to ask some general questions before they start working with different lawyers, so.

Cyndy: [00:17:47] Well, it can definitely save money for the user as well, because they’re going to be able to narrow down their issues before they do go speak to a lawyer. So it ultimately saves them money even beyond just the app itself.

Len: [00:18:01] Right. Yeah. Excellent.

Cyndy: [00:18:04] Yeah.

Len: [00:18:06] So Lori anything you.

Lori: [00:18:07] I agree with that.

Len: [00:18:07] Want to add to that.

Lori: [00:18:10] I was just going to say you know what, often the first step is the most important step. Right. So, this is the mechanism for that. And you know, in terms of, you know, having the opportunity to be on the board for this, for me, really, really exciting. On a personal level, it means part of building something new, something that challenges the old way of doing law and really opening the door to people who never thought legal help was for them, which is absolutely fantastic.

Len: [00:18:39] Yeah. Exactly right. So, that’s great. Okay, ladies, I thank you very much for your time today. It’s always interesting to watch what’s going on at Resolve Law. It seems to be, just looking at your LinkedIn page here, Cyndy, and it’s like you’ve been promoting the heck out of this. That’s good.

Cyndy: [00:18:58] Oh, for sure. Yeah. I think it’s going to be a really excellent benefit for everybody. It’s a win-win-win.

Len: [00:19:07] Yeah. Sounds like it for sure. So anyways, thanks for your time today.

Cyndy: [00:19:10] Thank you.

Len: [00:19:12] Thanks for listening today. I hope you found the information that we provided to be useful in your mortgage journey. And remember, you can always find our associates at www.brokersforlife.ca/associates. Have a great day.