Our first item up today is
Virtech Paralegal, a company based out of Dallas that seeks to reduce economies-of-scale advantages held by bigger law firms by making it easier for solo practitioners and small firms to access paralegal services and organizational software.
I saw this today about the company:
Last month, Virtech landed its first private financing – $500,000 from a local angel investor group – for marketing and to hire up to 40 people, said Brandon Lloyd, co-founder and chief operating officer of Virtech. Almost all of Virtech's nearly 20 clients are sole practitioners, he said.
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Beyond its recent angel financing, Virtech plans to raise $2.5 million in a private stock offering to expand to new markets, enhance its software and hire more staff, officials said.
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First Virtech plans to expand its paralegal service to Austin, Houston, San Antonio, and to other states, starting with California next year, Brown said.
Now, I don't think this company's model is going to revolutionize the legal industry or bring BigLaw to its knees or anything like that, but that's a lot of financing and a lot of planned growth for a young company. Reading between the lines, I'm guessing that their numbers are very good for them to nab to 500k and then turn around and discuss a stock offering for five times as much, with expansion to other markets within two years. Either these people are expansion/credit-crazy to a fault and their business will come crashing down faster than a housing bubble eating Krispy Kremes, or their model is showing some very good returns thus far and proving itself better than whatever else is out there. My gut says the latter and that this is a situation to watch in lowering costs for private practitioners.
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Our next item up is McDonalds and
yet another example of someone taking products liability/tort/trade practices/etc. theories obviously too far. I don't think this really needs comment:
The Center for Science in the Public Interest is representing the mother of a six-year-old girl in a class-action lawsuit on behalf of all California children under the age of eight who have been exposed to McDonald's "inherently deceptive and unfair" marketing in the last three years. The suit claims that McDonald's has "engaged in a highly sophisticated scheme to use the bait of toys to exploit children's developmental immaturity and subvert parental authority" and that arguments over Happy Meals have caused "needless and unwarranted dissension in their parent-child relationship."
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Our third item is debt collectors. For the uninformed, the FTC has passed through a number of changes in debt collection law in the wake of the omnibus financial reform that took place last year, specifically to target deceptive practices. But as with all things where laws cannot cover the full gamut of clever means to the ultimate end,
Creditbloggers reports that debt collectors are finding novel solutions. This one struck me in particular:
Another tactic: Pose as lawyers, who are exempted from the new rules. By setting themselves up as law firms, many debt resolution companies believe they can skirt the rules. But few consumers actually get to speak to a real lawyer, according to the letter, and if they do, the lawyer is usually not licensed to practice law in their state.
I would hope there's no attorneys dumb enough to set up these firms that exist solely to evade the law and perform what seems to me to be the unauthorized practice of the law, but I'm sure we'll be seeing more stories on this in the future. There's too much money involved in debt collection - especially as joblessness continues - for there to not be entertaining shenanigans in the murky debt collection sector.
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The fourth item is that I want to wish all my readers who celebrate it a Merry Christmas!