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TECH SUPPORT A Vancouver lawyer is behind an online employment law web site for consumers. BY GERRY BLACKWELL things F ired Without Cause, a direct-to-con- sumer online legal service launched in July by Vancouver-based Paradigm Shift Solutions, Inc., may be the leading edge of a new wave in the profession. But is it a threat or an opportunity? Fired Without Cause offers consum- ers help figuring out what to do when they're thrown out of work. The web site, firedwithoutcause.com, provides free basic information about employment law and employee rights. For $39, it will calculate what an employer should pay as a severance package based on a variety of factors, including up-to-date case law. For another $20, it produces a claim let- ter incorporating the calculations. Chilwin Cheng, president of Paradigm Shift and a lawyer in private practice, believes services such as Fired Without Cause are inevitable and that more will be coming. Indeed, his company is already developing new online legal products, although he won't reveal yet what they The shape of to come? are. "I think it's part of a growing trend," says Cheng. Legal self-help products are not new, of course. Paper-based will kits have been available for years. But Cheng has noticed an uptick in demand for similar products online. More and more small businesses, for example, are using legal forms kits to draft contracts, he says. "Whether they're doing a good job with them is not the point. This is what con- sumers are asking for. Rather than fight- ing the trend, we're trying to work with it," he says. Cheng was partly inspired by his expe- rience in private practice and his sense that the justice system fails many ordi- nary citizens because they simply can't afford legal representation. "I was deeply concerned about the effect on average Canadians of rising legal costs," he says. Lawyers working for nothing or for lower fees was not the answer, he decided. "It occurred to me that the solution would be an entirely new business model." Initially developing that business model around wrongful dismissal was not entirely coincidence. Cheng was let go from his position as chief counsel at Market Regulation Services Inc. in 2008 when the firm amalgamated with the Investment Dealers Association of Canada to form the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada. "I had always been on the adviser side," he says. "This was the first time I was ever on the employee side." Going through the process was hard enough, but it would be much more difficult, he realized, for ordinary people who didn't have the legal knowledge and resources he did. Cheng started working on Fired Without Cause with co-founder Jim Hamlin while the two were studying for executive MBAs at Simon Fraser University. They developed it over two years, hiring contract programmers, web developers, and lawyers to do the www. C ANADIAN Law ye rmag.com SEPTEMBER 2009 25 ENRICO VARRASSO