Former executive director of the American Bar Association (ABA), Jack Rives, has joined legal services company Rocket Lawyer. Rives stepped down from his 12-year role at ABA last February and is now taking up the helm of a newly created business unit at Rocket Lawyer, called Rocket Legal Professional Services. his primary role is spearheading the company’s expansion of affordable legal services through lawyers and legal professionals.
Besides this, Rives will be overseeing Rocket Lawyer’s alternative business structure initiatives both in the UK and as part of the Utah regulatory sandbox. Additionally, he will be seeking an Alternative Business Structure (ABS) designation in Arizona and play a critical role in executing the company’s plans to employ artificial intelligence to boost lawyer productivity.
During his tenure at ABA, Rives initiated a partnership with Rocket Lawyer to launch ABA Law Connect, a legal services test program for small businesses in three states. Nevertheless, this pilot program was discontinued just three months in, facing opposition from state and local bar associations.
Rives came into contact with Rocket Lawyer’s founder and CEO, Charley Moore, during this partnership. After leaving ABA, Rives was offered this new role by Moore.
Before joining ABA in 2010, Rives served as a judge advocate in the U.S. Air Force for 33 years, even ascending to the rank of lieutenant general, the first military attorney to do so. Rives’s experiences with the military’s user-friendly approach to legal services and his tenure at the ABA made him well-versed with the challenge of enhancing the accessibility and affordability of legal services on a larger scale.
AriVe’s new position at Rocket Lawyer will involve him in the company’s efforts to increase the number of lawyers and their capacity through technology and AI. Rocket Lawyer already has an ABS license in the UK and was the first national firm approved to operate under Utah’s regulatory sandbox, which allows it to employ lawyers directly in those areas. Rives’s addition will boost the company’s efforts to get an ABS license in Arizona and expand its service areas and operations.
Rocket Lawyer is also leveraging artificial intelligence to enhance lawyers’ capacity to deliver legal help. The expectation is that generative AI will generate an initial response to a client’s problem, which then a lawyer can review and edit. Rives states that the firm’s ultimate goal is to expand its attorney network so that it can promptly respond to customer’s legal needs.
Rives also indicated that Rocket Lawyer doesn’t intend to exclude itself from advocating for change in legal regulations, similar to the pioneering steps taken by Arizona and Utah. Rives reminds everyone that the world is changing and adapting to this ever-changing world is becoming a necessity, a message he kept echoing back in his ABA days.
Further details are available on the same.