“Technology should help not damage the legal industry.”
New York—Friday, October 6, 2017 – It’s a trend on the rise: Fake lawyers stealing the online identities of legitimate legal professionals to exploit the profession’s most vulnerable consumers, and in doing so, damaging reputations and trust in the profession. Earlier this month, the Dot Law team published the first in a planned series of white papers on technology and the legal profession examining the threat posed by fake lawyers. The white paper, entitled “Fake Lawyer Websites on the Rise: Consumers and Legal Profession at Risk,” introduces the problem, but the real discussion has yet to happen in earnest, a problem Dot Law, Inc. is hoping to change. It seems the dialogue might now be beginning. Just yesterday, Legaltech News, the legal industry’s source for coverage of legal technology trends, covered our white paper, noting that practitioners may find themselves “in a bind” (Hernandez, 2017). Posting credentials on their websites is necessary for lawyers to attract clients, but opens a dangerous vulnerability to identity theft in doing so (Hernandez, 2017).
“Technology should help, not damage, the legal industry,” says Dot Law, Inc’s Lou Andreozzi. The extent of the problem is quite serious. Case after case of fraudulent websites from around the world prompted the white paper investigation and one of the biggest contributing factors to these fraudulent websites is how simple it is to get a .com domain name. Unlike a .gov or a .edu, there is absolutely no regulation for a .com. Dot Law believes that regulating domain names for lawyers is essential to protect the legal industry and consumers from fake legal websites. Unlike a .com, a .law domain name is available only to qualified lawyers and legal institutions and requires third party verification. That means only real lawyers have .law websites.
Is a .law domain name enough? Protecting your reputation and the interests of your clients on a .law domain name just makes sense for security and commercial reasons. Ensuring your legal website is on a verifiable domain name protects you, protects your clients, and puts you in control of technology rather than falling victim to it. But that’s not all there is to do. The next step is getting the word out to the industry and the people it serves. We not only need to bring awareness to the dangers of fake lawyers, but to educate consumers and professionals on the benefits and assurance a regulated domain name brings.
For more information on Fake Lawyers, please visit http://home.law. To register for a verified, exclusive, restricted .law domain name, please visit http://join.law.
About .law:
.law is the restricted top-level domain (TLD) dedicated to the legal profession. .law promotes trust in the professional legal community by empowering lawyers, bar associations and other qualified legal institutions to demonstrate their credentials by virtue of using their verified .law domain name. Only qualified lawyers and legal institutions are eligible to secure a .law domain name. The .law TLD is wholly owned by MMX. For more information about .law please visit http://nic.law For more information about MMX please visit https://mmx.co
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