December 3, 2018

Gilda R. Turitz
Turitz Dispute Resolution
Four Embarcadero, Suite 1400
San Francisco, CA 94111

LegalForce RAPC Worldwide, P.C. vs. LegalZoom.com, Inc.

Case No.: 01-18-0001-5162

RE: LegalForce’s Reply to LegalZoom’s objection to the deposition subpoenas served on Brian
Lee and Robert Shapiro

Dear Madam Arbitrator Turitz,

Please find below claimant LegalForce RAPC Worldwide, P.C. (“RAPC”)’s Reply to
LegalZoom’s response letter, dated November 28, 2018 (“LZ’s Objection”), objecting to the deposition
subpoenas served on Brian Lee and Robert Shapiro.

In federal court the scope of discovery is that “[p]arties may obtain discovery regarding any
nonprivileged matter that is relevant to any party’s claim or defense and proportional to the needs of the
case[.]” Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1). In this arbitration the rule requires the parties to produce documents and
electronically stored documents that are “relevant and material to the outcome of disputed issues.” AAA
Commercial Arbitration Rules (“CAR”) R-22(b)iii; R-22(b)iv. Evidence “that the arbitrator deems
material and relevant to the resolution of the dispute” may be presented in a proceeding. CAR R-32(c);
R-34(a). As pertinent to this matter, “the arbitrator may order depositions to obtain the testimony of a
person who may possess information determined by the arbitrator to be relevant and material to the
outcome of the case.” AAA Complex Rules L-3(f).

Thus, the questions before Madam Arbitrator are, what are the disputed issues, and whether the
depositions of Brian Lee and Robert Shapiro are relevant and material to those issues.

1. The issue of Shapiro’s false statement is now outstanding because the pleading stage is over.

The pleading stage is over because LegalZoom did not challenge Shapiro’s false statement by the
November 9, 2018 deadline. This issue of Shapiro’s false statement is now outstanding in the discovery
stage.

Pursuant to Paragraph 3 of the Preliminary Hearing and Scheduling Order #3 (“PHSO#3”),

RAPC filed Statement of Claim (“SOC”) on September 21, 2018, alleging nine (9) counts against
LegalZoom. On October 12, 2018, LegalZoom filed a response, challenging the sufficiency of five (5)

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counts. RAPC then filed a reply on October 22, 2018, withdrawing the five counts. Thus, the remaining
four (4) counts in the SOC are:

● Count 1, Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1125(a)

● Count 5, California UCL
● Count 7, Legal Document Assistant Law
● Count 9, Declaratory Relief

See also ​Ex. A at 4. Madam Arbitrator affords the parties until November 9, 2018 to “raise any
other preliminary matters”. PHSO#3 ¶ 4. However, LegalZoom never challenged the four counts in the
SOC. In fact, defense counsel Michael Rhodes affirmed on October 23, 2018 that “we need to adhere to
the existing schedule due to relying on it in setting other commitments”. Ex. A at 1. To that, Madam
Arbitrator replied:

“We will adhere to the current scheduling order. ¶ We have a further pre-hearing
conference call scheduled for November 9 at 11 AM. When that was set it was anticipated
that there might be ​pleading issues, including possible motions​​, to be discussed. Since
that is not the case, I am inclined to take it off calendar unless you have specific agenda
items to propose. Please advise by October 26 if that is the case.”

Id. ​at 1 (emphasis added). On October 26, 2018, having not heard from anyone about any plans to file
possible motions regarding pleading issues, Madam Arbitrator took the preliminary hearing off calendar.

Therefore, issues related to LegalZoom’s false statement “E”, “I’m Robert Shapiro and I created
LegalZoom.”, as alleged in SOC ¶¶ 62, 63 and 108, are outstanding in the discovery stage. RAPC is
entitled to seek discovery of the relevant facts in order to prove its allegations and successfully litigate
this case.

2. LegalZoom’s argument that the depositions lack sufficient support in the SOC should be
disregarded in its entirety.

​ Z’s Objection at
LegalZoom argues that the depositions lack sufficient support in the SOC. ​See L
pgs. 2-4 (“3. Deposition Topics 1–3 Lack Sufficient Support in the Statement of Claim”). This argument
should be disregarded in its entirety because the whole argument is not about whether the deposition
topics are supported by the SOC, but rather, whether the SOC has sufficiently alleged facts to state a
claim. As explained above, the pleading stage is over and RAPC must be allowed to discover the facts
alleged in the SOC in order to prove its case.

To prove that Shapiro’s statement is false, the SOC alleges Brian Lee’s statement in Footnote 7
(​https://youtu.be/RE5HxiLpxd0?t=21m8s​). RAPC asks Madam Arbitrator to watch this video from
21’08’’ onwards. Specifically, Brian Lee says:

Brian Lee: ​People were scared to even buy anything in 99/2000…...Why would they trust us to

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give us not only their credit card information but all their information, their bank account information,
their mortgage information...so we realized we want to put a face to the company, just to bring it
legitimacy….And at that time, and even today Robert Shapiro was one of the most famous lawyers in the
country….We asked everyone we knew if they knew Robert Shapiro,.... and no one knew him...I called 411
information….It was like 9 o’clock at night….he answered the phone.. He picked up and said hello…he
said this is Robert Shapiro how can help you...

In the video the founder Brian Lee made it clear that he approached Mr. Shapiro ​after LegalZoom
was created. Moreover, LegalZoom posts an article titled “LegalZoom Celebrates 10 Years” buried on its
website says:

Ten years ago this month, three friends from law school and the working world decided to give up
their comfortable jobs for a vision: to figure out a better way for people to access the legal system. They
called it LegalZoom. Brian Liu, Brian Lee and Eddie Hartman were so sure of their vision, they were
willing to stake their livelihoods on it. Like any start-up, they faced great odds—especially during a time
when the economy had bottomed out after Internet stocks were being dumped on the market. Nonetheless,
they decided to keep moving forward…. Basically, we tried to survive with the least amount of money that
you could. So everything we did was basically on the cheap. Lunch was ramen or peanut butter
sandwiches. We'll tell you this story. Basically, our very first business trip we had to go to San Francisco
and we couldn't afford the airline tickets. So we crammed into a car, we drove up there. We stayed at a
$29 hotel—all three of us.

See ​Exhibit C or ​https://www.legalzoom.com/articles/legalzoom-celebrates-10-years​. Brian Lee

goes on to say in this article:

This is back in the pretty early days of the Internet. We knew that we had to attach someone to
our company that people trusted, or at least they trusted that they knew what they were doing. Because no
one had ever heard of me, Brian or Eddie. So we came up with a list of attorneys that we thought would
be a great fit, and Robert Shapiro was the number one name on our list. We called everyone we knew,
“Do you know Robert Shapiro? Can you put us in touch with Robert Shapiro?” No one we knew knew
him. So I called information and I called him at 10 o'clock at night thinking I would leave a voicemail.
He actually picked up his phone. I said, “Hi, I'm calling for Robert Shapiro.” And he said, “This is
Robert Shapiro. How can I help you?” I said, “Well, my name is Brian Lee and I have a business idea I
would like to run by you. He said, “Well, I'm not really interested right now and it's kind of late at night.”
Right then it hit me that I've got just a few seconds. So I said, “Well, wait. How do you know you're not
interested if you don't hear me out?” So, he says, “You've got two minutes.” And in those two minutes I
told him the whole concept.

Id.
In contrast to these random statements from LegalZoom’s true founders on very difficult to find
web pages buried on the internet, LegalZoom PR and marketing arms continue to propagate the myth that
Robert Shapiro created or founded LegalZoom on television, on radio, and by making no public statement
to correct the misrepresentation. For example, in the paid coverage on LawNewz.com in 2016 quoting

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FoxNews, LegalZoom sponsors the myth “​After the verdict, Shapiro went on to create the fast food like
website LegalZoom”. ​(see: ​https://youtu.be/3YeopDK0PQs?t=4m19s​) LawNewz.com is a website of PR
and media consultancy agency Abrams Media. See: ​https://www.lawnewz.com/contact/​. Moreover, in
this publicity clip in 2016, LegalZoom showed Shapiro’s falsely shows “Founder”​ directly on the 2016
advertisement on LegalZoom and image below :

To this day, Mr. Shapiro continues to maintain that he “founded” LegalZoom on his own law firm
profile. ​See ​https://www.glaserweil.com/attorneys/robert-shapiro​. For example, Mr. Shapiro writes on this
profile “​Mr. Shapiro considers himself to be an entrepreneur at heart and has founded two companies:
LegalZoom.com and Shoedazzle.com.​” Tellingly, LegalZoom has no facts to support that it has ever asked
Mr. Shapiro to remove the false statement from his law firm’s website. 1

Therefore, the statement “I’m Robert Shapiro and I created LegalZoom” is a false statement. It is
likely that a good percentage of LegalZoom’s customers believe that Robert Shapiro to be the founder of
LegalZoom and that he created it. In reality, he is just a paid spokesperson who was not involved in the
company’s early formation years of struggle. LegalZoom has done nothing to change this narrative to the
public.

3. There is no undue burden to Lee and Shapiro.

Since both Mr. Shapiro and Mr. Lee are no longer working at LegalZoom, we cannot get this
discovery directly from LegalZoom. Mr. Shapiro has already accepted to attending the deposition on
November 19, 2018. ​See E​ x. B. He is available in January 2019, and we were finalizing a date tentatively
set for January 25, 2019. As for Brian Lee, he is a successful businessman who started three successful

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Maybe it has, but since LegalZoom has never filed an answer or counterclaim, or a motion to dismiss the
Lanhan Act claim with respect to this false statement, RAPC has to find out in discovery.
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startups.2 He will be represented by defense counsel Cooley LLP at the deposition. Therefore, there are
hardly any undue burden to either Mr. Shapiro or Mr. Lee in attending the deposition.

4. Deposing Lee and Shapiro is not “apex deposition”

As for LegalZoom’s argument that the deposition of Lee and Shapiro invoke “apex doctrine”,
LZ’s Objection at 4, this argument is totally misplaced. The “so-called ‘apex deposition doctrine’
prohibits plaintiffs from deposing high-level corporate officials unless the plaintiff can show that (1) the
executive has unique or special knowledge of the facts at issue, and (2) other less burdensome avenues for
obtaining the information sought have been exhausted.” ​Drake v. Steak N Shake Operations, Inc.,​ 2018
U.S. Dist. LEXIS 126467 at *2-3 (E.D. Miss. Jul. 30, 2018), Case No. 4:14-cv-01535-JAR. Here, neither
Mr. Lee nor Mr. Shapiro is high-level corporate official of LegalZoom ​because they don’t even work
there.​ Moreover, they are the only person from whom the information related to the false statements can
be discovered, as they were the ones who made the false statements. Thus, there is no less burdensome
way for LegalZoom to produce someone other than Mr. Lee or Mr. Shapiro who could provide the
relevant and material information regarding this issue.

LegalZoom argues that RAPC “has not and cannot allege that it was injured by the YouTube
video” because the video has less than 500 views. LZ’s Objection at 3. This argument is nonsensical.
RAPC could be injured even if there is only one view, because that one view could be from a potential
customer of RAPC. Again, this argument should have been brought before November 9, 2018. Now that
the pleading has settled, RAPC is entitled to discover the relevant facts to prove its case.

Therefore, based on the above, RAPC respectfully request Madam Arbitrator to deny
LegalZoom’s objection to the subpoena, so that RAPC may discover the relevant facts with respect to the
false statements at issue and prove the case.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Kind regards,

Raj Abhyanker

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​See ​https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Lee_(entrepreneur)​.
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