By: Farrah Rajan
Walmart has brokered a deal with Axess Law to provide legal services in select Walmart locations. The founders of Axess Law are hoping to promote access to justice by alleviating the fear people have of consulting a lawyer. They provide a walk-in service for a small number of matters that they deal with on-site and refer matters out of their scope to other firms. With this business model, they are able to offer affordable rates and provide service in the evenings and on the weekends.
While some people may be hesitant to seek the services of a lawyer at their local Walmart, the lawyers at Axess Law are still governed by the Law Society Act and must conduct themselves accordingly. Customers buy groceries, electronics and toys from Walmart and don’t expect the items to be potentially unsafe, so why should legal services be any different? Also, Walmart already offers a number of speciality resources that require licensed staff such as pharmacy, vision, and vehicle maintenance services that contribute to their overall success.
Promoting access to justice should be a fundamental goal for all legal professionals in order to maintain the integrity of our legal system. I commend Axess Law for this endeavour and hope to see them expand their offerings in the future.
On an extremely biased side note, adding licensed paralegals to their practice would be a phenomenal step forward.
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This is a great idea and pretty exciting. I hope this model of legal services will take off and that we start to see a wider range of accessible, affordable legal services being offered by a number of providers. And I agree that it only makes senses for paralegals to be part of this change.
Although it is a welcoming sight to see legal service going “no-frills” for the general public, the sustainability of such service remains to be seen. How much undercut can a law firm, especially for a boutique, sustain for the sake of accessibility to the general public? Axess may have the resources to sustain or even assume a noble mission for answering the question of affordability, but how does it response to the issue of branding? Would some portion of the population question the quality of its service because it appears to be “cheap”? As a member of the general public, I certainly am appreciated the arrival of Axess but I am a little concern for the sustainability of such service in the long run. The defunct Honest Ed’s auto department, Jetsgo and Oasis Airlines are few examples for those who pushed the envelope of affordability too far.
Walmart is attempting to ‘corner the market’ not only in respect of cheap consumer items, but evidently, their reach also extends to cheap professional services as well. Let’s be clear on this matter. Walmart’s iniative to amalgamate access to justice services with their own unique branding, although bold and tranformative in its approach, is not a novel idea in principle. The one stop shopping experience has been developed and implemented in many parts of the world and has had relative success in some quarters. I do agree with Leo however, that a blend of household appliances, clothing, farm and garden supplies, and an adjoining Big Mac outlet may not be the ideal combination in tandem with the noble attempt of the profession to provide legal advice that could determine one’s fate or future endeavours. They will need to carefully consider the strategic location of the law offices in relation to the other activities in the store to allow for easy access to potential clients, while maintaining an air of professionalism around the office space. Despite my own concerns, I won’t knock the idea of a merge of these entities too soon, since there lies the possibility that this may provide lucrative openings for paralegals in the near future.