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Sometimes having you do something manually is part of the point. Areas of legal risk or when you're acting against your own interests are areas where the attorn
by torstenvl 6y ago
Sometimes having you do something manually is part of the point. Areas of legal risk or when you're acting against your own interests are areas where the attorney might want to draw extra attention. Think of it as an "Are you sure?" dialog.
An example: when I was doing basic legal assistance, we had a lot of folks who wanted a power of attorney. Many of them insisted on getting a general power of attorney. There are significant risks that such an instrument may be too powerful, and also that it may not be powerful enough. Eventually, we had a disclaimer on the back of the request form that they had to rewrite, by hand, before we would draft the instrument for execution.
- PebblesRox 6y agoI'm curious to hear more about the affect of adding the disclaimer. Did it mean fewer people put in the request? Did it prompt them to ask more questions? Did it replace in-person discussions of the significance of the decision? I'd love to hear more details of how the change played out.
- torstenvl 6y agoFewer people ended up requesting them. It was common knowledge that they can be abused, so when we would explain the risks people would tune us out and their eyes would glaze over and they would insist. By making them rewrite by hand that there's also a risk that different companies and agencies will refuse to honor them, they finally understand that the risks are not just theoretical, but practical.