Mission

Our mission is to help Americans understand the legal rules and procedures that affect their lives, so they can handle legal matters themselves or seek expert help armed with the knowledge they need.

History

Nolo was born of the frustration of two legal aid lawyers who were working for low-income families in the San Francisco Bay area in the late 1960s. Ralph (Jake) Warner and Charles Sherman were tired of having to turn away working people who didn't qualify for free legal aid but couldn't afford lawyers. There was no place to send these people, because there were almost no sources of legal information except lawyers—no do-it-yourself books or software, and no Internet.

To fill the need they saw, Warner and Sherman began writing plain-English legal guides themselves. But publishers wouldn't touch their books ("Self-help law? You must be nuts!"), so Warner and Sherman began publishing them, starting with Sherman's How to Do Your Own Divorce in California. The public was hungry for information, and Nolo became widely recognized as a pioneer of the do-it-yourself law revolution.

When personal computers came along in the 1980s, Nolo developed do-it-yourself legal software, including Quicken WillMaker, which has sold over two million copies. Again, the idea was simple—give people clear, reliable legal information and let them get on with the job. Nolo created one of the first legal websites for consumers, offering lots of free information, online document preparation, and downloadable versions of all Nolo books and software. The Webby Award-winning website now attracts more than a million visitors each month.

Nolo's most recent innovation is a uniquely consumer-friendly Lawyer Directory, to help people when they want professional help in addition to self-help. The directory features in-depth attorney profiles so people can find a local lawyer who's a good fit. Every attorney in the directory takes the Nolo Pledge, promising to meet high standards of integrity, client communication and loyalty.

Working for a better legal system

Nolo doesn't just publish useful products; it advocates for a more open and democratic legal system. Over the years, Nolo has promoted a legal reform agenda in a quarterly newspaper, on Nolo.com, and in books such as The People's Law Review, edited by Ralph Warner, and Fed Up with the Legal System? What's Wrong & How to Fix It, by Stephen Elias and Ralph Warner.

Nolo has pushed for the legal system to:

• Require that all laws, regulations and court forms be written in plain English
• Require courts to provide in-person help to people without lawyers
• Simplify courtroom procedures to give people without lawyers a fair shake
• Substantially raise small claims court dollar limits to create a true people's court
• Take some simple matters out of court entirely
• Let lawyers coach the self-represented without taking over the whole case
• Promote the use of mediation to settle disputes out of court
• Let trained and certified nonlawyers (legal document preparers) deliver legal services directly to consumers

At first, the legal establishment paid scant attention to the proposals of Nolo and other reformers. Trying to learn about the law or handle a routine legal task yourself, they sniffed, was akin to doing your own brain surgery. But as do-it-yourself products moved into the mainstream, more and more Americans realized that they didn't always need a lawyer to get information or fill out paperwork.

That made some lawyers nervous. As law professor Steven Gillers told Time magazine, 'When you realize how routinized legal work is, and how much information you can pack into an interactive CD-ROM, then you recognize how easy it is to substitute a computer for a lawyer. That's the threat.' (Time, August 3, 1998.)

In 1997, a Texas Bar Association committee actually sought to ban Nolo books and software from the state. Fortunately, public librarians, the national media and First Amendment advocates everywhere rallied to Nolo's defense. After a two-year fight, the Texas legislature finally passed a law just to make it clear that selling law books and software was not "practicing law without a license."

Nolo Today

Today, thanks to the Internet, information about the law is everywhere. And many of Nolo's ideas about reforming the legal system have been adopted. Many courts and agencies provide helpful, plain-English materials online or welcome do-it-yourselfers when they come in. We're proud that the efforts of one small company have helped make America's legal system more democratic and affordable.

But we are still far from a legal system where all laws are easy to understand, all legal forms are well-designed and easy to use, and basic courthouse procedures are equally accessible to both lawyers and do-it-yourselfers.

Consumers still need access to trustworthy legal information and sometimes, to trustworthy attorneys. That's why Nolo, with its large team of experienced legal editors and authors, still strives to develop and improve its materials. No other organization provides such a wide array of reliable, reasonably priced, and relentlessly up-to-date information about the law.

Over almost 40 years, Nolo has published over 20 million do-it-yourself legal products. The company, which has more than 100 employees and dozens of dedicated authors, still operates out of the former clock factory in Berkeley, California, that's been its home for 30 years. Although software engineers and Web designers have replaced typesetters, Nolo remains true to the original vision and passion of its founders: to publish reliable, plain-English legal information that's accessible to everyone.