Their doctor assures them it’s just a common cold, but no – they know their symptoms, they’ve done their research, and the internet has informed them they have been struck with a fatal strand of swine flu. Since the advent of the internet, medical self-diagnosis has been creating problems for doctors the world over.

 

These days, it’s no longer just a problem for the medical profession. Client self-diagnosis is now an issue for lawyers and doctors alike.

 

In areas ranging from personal defamation to fair trade and unfair dismissal, people are now turning to the internet to find answers to their legal grievances. LawAssist is a free, government-backed online resource to help self-represented litigants, and covers popular areas of consumer law, such as fines, AVOs, employment rights and car accidents. US-based sites such as Kentlaw walk clients through the process of answering legal questions, and YahooAnswers has an entire section devoted to law and ethics. While this can equip many prospective clients with a firmer understanding of their legal rights, it can also imbue many with a false hope for a hefty settlement thanks to subjective or uniformed information sources. This leaves lawyers with the onerous task of managing client expectations.

 

Similarly, many would-be investors are now downloading shareholder agreements, while entrepreneurs are turning to sites like Foundrs to create business formation documents without learning anything of directors’ duties or protocols through which partners can exit a business.

 

Christopher Eddison-Cogan, founder and managing partner of law firm Eddison Cogan, attributes the outbreak of legal self-diagnosis to a range of factors.

 

“More freely available information, more educated clients, clients seeking to save costs, a reduced status for professional advice, and perhaps even an aging population,” he told College of Law Insight. “The average client has lived longer, learned more and has online access to a standard of legal research and opinion once restricted to private law libraries.”

 

Indeed, while client self-diagnosis can often present problems for lawyers, Eddison-Cogan asserts that it can also afford the diligent client a keen insight into their legal conundrum.

 

“A legal education is valuable training in how to think in a certain way, but a client who has seen a specific legal problem before might have a more detailed understanding of that problem than a lawyer who hasn’t,” he said.

 

Looking to the future, Eddison-Cogan is optimistic about the impact of self-diagnosis on the legal profession.

 

“It impacts the role of lawyers in a good way, because it drives up the required standard of legal advice,” he said.

 

“The job is perhaps more challenging than it was, but that is a source of interest and stimulation.”

 

In the meantime, let’s just hope that WebMD doesn’t launch a legal component.