What's Below:
Additional Information:
DirectLaw/Epoq
Strategic Alliances
Establishing an Affiliate Revenue-Sharing Relationship
Management and Staff
Press Coverage
Q. What is DirectLaw, Inc.?
A. DirectLaw, Inc., is not a law firm and we do not provide legal advice or legal representation. We are a legal information services company only. You will find on this site access to lawyers and legal advice, but we provide these links as a convenience to our users only. We do not profit in any way from these referral links.
Established in 1998, and located in Owings Mills, Maryland, by Richard Granat, a Maryland attorney,
DirectLaw, Inc., is dedicated to the idea that providing legal information and digital legal tools over the Internet can help people solve some of their legal problems at low cost by either representing themselves or purchasing discrete legal services from an attorney only when they need it. We were one of the first legal information companies on the Web and today publish a family of national legal information web sites including:
(Back to Top)
Q. What is DiectLawMD.com?
A. RapidocsMD.com is our first state-based legal information site that is designed as a comprehensive legal resource for Maryland's residents. This site contains Maryland specific legal content,
interactive legal information services, Maryland forms and links to Maryland legal resources. Our goal is to provide your first stop when you want to learn about Maryland law.
The law guide content and legal forms has been developed and edited by a team of Maryland attorneys who are committed to the idea of access to the legal system through the use of internet technology.
(Back to Top)
Q. What is DirectLaw's relationship to Rapidocs?
A. Rapidocs is a powerful web-enabled document assembly system that is very easy to use. Document assembly means that a user simply answers a series of questions and a legal or other complex document is created automatically. Rapidocs was developed by
Epoq Software, in the United Kingdom and powers the most trafficked legal web sites in
the UK.. See:
http://www.desktoplawyer.co.uk.
Epoq US, Inc., the parent company of DirectLaw, Inc., is the exclusive licensee of Rapidocs in the United States, which enables us to use this powerful technology on all of our web sites.
(Back to Top)
Q. Can I really represent myself?
A. We believe that with accurate and complete legal information a person of reasonable intelligence and education can represent themselves in a wide variety of routine and uncontested legal matters. This assumption is based on fact. For example, in an evaluation study undertaken by the University of Maryland School of Law of a sample drawn from over 10,000 pro se litigants in family matters in Maryland Courts, seventy-four (74%) of the reported that they were satisfied with the result and would represent themselves again. Fifty-four (54%) percent reported that they decided to represent themselves because they thought a lawyer would be too expensive, and an additional eighteen (18%) reported that they represented themselves because they did not think that the problem was sufficiently complicated that a lawyer's services were required. These research findings are supported by similar research in other jurisdictions which are collected at the
Pro Se Law Center, a research web site which we also publish.
There are situations when you should not represent yourself and you should seek the assistance of counsel. These situations include, for example. where you have substantial assets; where you and your spouse cannot reach agreement on custody, visitation, or child support issues; and where your spouse is uncooperative or has been abusive. On the other hand if your dispute is uncontested, securing a legal result may only be a matter of filing the correct legal documents in the correct order. If you can follow instructions, you can represent yourself as a pro se litigant. National data supports this assertion.
In states such as California and Florida, for example, 60-70% of all divorces are uncontested and the parties are not represented by counsel. In California and Florida, a high percentage of individuals represent themselves in other areas of the law as well.
Representing yourself does not mean that you should secure legal advice to assist you in this process. Many lawyers will offer limited legal advice and counsel for a fixed fee. This is called, "unbundled legal services" and does not involve retention of the lawyer for the entire matter, but just those aspects where you need the legal assistance of an attorney.
It is time that these reforms which enable law that you can afford be brought to Maryland.
See Generally: On Line Law: Why the Legal System Will Never be The Same Again, by Jake Warner, President, Nolo Press.
(Back to Top)
Q. What if I need legal advice?
A. We do not provide legal advice from this web site. If you need legal advice, which is defined as applying the law to the specific facts of your case, we recommend a telephone legal advice service which is being offered by a network of law firms located in each state by LawExpress, one of the nation's largest providers of pre-paid legal insurance plans in the country. This network of law firms is available for a flat fee of $39.95 per telephone call, with no time limit, under a variety of pre-paid legal service plans. You can use this network to secure advice to determine whether a document meets your needs or following assembly to ensure that the document fully meets your requirements.
(Back to Top)
Q. How do I contact RapidocsMD?
Contact Information:
RapidocsMD
DirectLaw, Inc.
9141 Reisterstown Rd., #43
Owings Mills, Maryland 21117
PHONE: 800-311-6123
EMAIL: support@rapidocsmd.com
(Back to Top)
| 
