Los Angeles Times/Our Times
Thursday, September 7, 2000
Legal Grind® offers a coffeehouse setting for clients needing legal assistance.
TARZANA -- Tucked away on Ventura Boulevard, in the midst of an ordinary-looking shopping plaza is a cozy café that provides an unusual side dish to its menu of coffee, bagels and desserts – legal counsel.
For the past six months, Coffee Junction in Tarzana has served as an annex for Legal Grind, a business that provides legal consultations in a café setting.
Lawyers provide information on everything from landlord and tenant disputes to personal injury cases. If they can’t help directly, they can provide a referral.
Legal Grind founder Jeffrey Hughes saw the business as a way to combine two longtime dr3eams, becoming a lawyer and a café owner, while improving the image of lawyers in California.
“I was a lawyer and I wasn’t proud of my profession,” Hughes said. “I was just disappointed with the whole thing, and I thought I could do something about it that combined two of my interests.”
Five years ago, Hughes opened Legal grind in Santa Monica. The operation has since expanded, with a nonprofit branch, services on the Internet and the annex in Tarzana.
Three lawyers work out of the Tarzana spot, which in recent months has operated more on an appointment basis, where potential clients contact the lawyers by phone rather than in the café, according to Jeffrey Endler, manager of the Tarzana branch.
Clients can set up appointments with a lawyer at Coffee Junction, where consultation cost $15.
“It’s about bringing the services to the public in places where they feel comfortable,” Hughes said.
Endler believes that by meeting in the café’s casual atmosphere, clients view the lawyers as a sort of friend, rather than as an intimidating figure.
“Everyone loved the idea that lawyers were doing the work to show that, “Hi, I’m a human being,” he said.
Michael Matteo used Legal Grind’s services when he began having problems with his landlords. He was searching for a lawyer who would not treat him like just another routine case.
“I wanted somebody who hadn’t been practicing law for 80 years and was bored with the profession,” he said. Matteo called Legal grind and was referred to Endler, who specializes in landord-tenant disputes.
“There is no condescension and pretension about [Endler]. It’s refreshing,” Matteo said.
Hughes hopes that by helpning clients on smaller matters, Legal Grind will build a loyal clientele.
“We’re offering a chance for lawyers to brand themselves. We’re building a reputable brand to last into the next century,” said Hughes, who hopes to eventually take Legal grind nationwide.
Hughes only brings on board lawyers who share his view on “bringing honesty back to the profession.”
“We have to weed out the people that are just thinking of expanding their practices,” he said. “We avoid that because it’s our reputation that we’re building.”
He sees businesses in the 21st century as a combination of financial and human interests.
“Profit and philanthropy can go hand in hand,” he said.
IN both medicine and law, the trend has been toward more accessible and consumer-friendly formats, with referral services and do-it-yourself books.
“Providing readily available accessibility to law for people with lower and middle incomes is great,” said Mary Viviano, a spokeswoman for the State Bar of California.
With businesses such as Legal grind, where the lawyers are certified and the organization authorized by the Sate Bar, Viviano feels a beneficial service is provided.
“It takes a lot to get people to take that extra step and get legal help. It can really overcome barriers when it is made easier for people to take that extra step and do it in a comfortable atmosphere,” she said.
- Erin Cassin
