Your matchmaker for class action lawsuits: SueEasy

SueEasy.com is a matchmaking app that connects people who have major and minor grievances in life with attorneys eager to file class action lawsuits for them. Like any good Web app, SueEasy is free, simple, and perhaps even effective.

Let's say your Web hosting company leaves you twisting in the wind, or you come back from a trip and your cell phone bill is more than your mortgage payment. In the olden days, if you were sufficiently harmed and angry, and had the fortitude of a sumo wrestler, maybe you could find an attorney who would spend months, if not years, trying to locate others similarly harmed. No more: the Internet is here to help.

To start the process of getting your would-be case off the ground, you fill in a free registration, then describe your medical, financial, product, employment, or other beef. Others can chime in. Or you can shop existing class action suits. In either case, attorneys and law firms interested in your case contact you directly regarding representation and participation in a given class action suit.

Registration is currently free for both consumers and lawyers, but the company may charge attorneys finders feeds for using the service.

Have you been wronged?

Like any interesting Web app, SueEasy is attracting competitors: Time Magazine reports that WhoICanSue.com will launch next month, with the mission of letting people find out from real lawyers if they have a case, and giving lawyers first crack at would-be clients for a $1,000 annual fee.

The class action activities at SueEasy.com range from the trivial to the tragic, and while the site claims "50,000 cases processed," there's nothing to back up that claim that I could find. Is SueEasy digital ambulance chasing or using the power of the Web to fuel the righting of real wrongs? You can be the judge of that.

[eyecap0724]

A promising resource for those of us who bridle at deceptions by individuals, collaborations, agglomerations etc. who get away with it because it's too difficult and too complex to challenge one one's own limited resources and muscularity . At the same time SueEasy may may help create communities of the victimized. BHest wishes for success.

[ElHalo]

As an attorney in New York, I can tell you that this service is illegal, at least in New York. Not for consumers / potential litigants trying to find lawyers, but for lawyers to use this would constitute serious ethical violations, and would subject them to severe disciplinary action. It would also be illegal for the website operators.

Not sure about other states, but in New York, it's a violation of the attorney code of professional responsibility to pay someone for clients, or for anyone who's not an attorney or law firm to collect a referral fee... and it might be improper solicitation as well, depending on how the system works.

These people really should have checked with bar association ethics committees before they started this website.

[ElHalo]

To clarify: I'm not accusing anyone of illegal conduct, and certainly not criminal conduct (as I don't believe there's any actual criminal conduct involved) just expressing my personal, nonlegal opinion that this particular service violates the attorney code of professional responsibility in the State of New York.

[rafe]

@ElHalo Thanks for the comment. Very interesting! Sounds like advertising and sponsorships could still work on this site.

[ElHalo]

Again, just my opinion -- the actual details of what's proper and not get decided by judges and ethics committees. It's a very grey area when you're talking about what's proper and what's not in terms of attorneys getting clients. But it's pretty clear, as far as I'm aware, that there's no two ways around the fact that an attorney can't pay people to get him clients. Attorneys get disbarred for that.

Now, with the way the site seems to be set up now -- neither the potential plaintiffs nor the attorneys pay a fee, and revenues come from advertising or whatever -- that doesn't appear to violate that. But if the site said to the attorney "you pay us $1000, we'll give you a case," that's just not something attorneys would be allowed to do. Either way, any time you deal with advertising for attorneys, it gets very sticky as to what falls inside the bounds of acceptable behaviour and what doesn't... and websites like this would be very well advised to get approval from state bar ethics committees before opening up for business. I mean, up until twenty or twenty five years ago, attorneys weren't even allowed to put ads in telephone directories in some jurisdictions, and the general restrictions on attorney advertising have been eased very slowly and with great pains... the requirements are a whole lot different for lawyers than for regular business people.

[stanbarb]

O.M.G! Here we go...
In a nation of whiners this site will find a ready market and will do fabulously.
It still sticks in my craw to see the asbestos guys (note I'm being very careful to NOT say anything libelous against any particular law firm... gotta C.Y.A. in all things these days) advertise and trumpet just how much they've "gotten for their clients"... well actually, truth be told, for themselves!
And then there are those adds in the stuck in my house, gotta-stay-at-home time slots offering to sue over any imagined slight or perceived fault which too are nauseating. Thanks be for the MUTE button!
Attorneys do have their place because we cannot be honest with each other and stick to our agreements or to stand up and take responsibility when we hurt someone by accident. But trolling for business by suggesting that you MIGHT have a case... well, that goes way over the top.
Sign me a very sickened Stan