As a busy lawyer, I spend a great deal of my life either up in the air or down on the road. At least a couple of times a month, I make sure my seatbelt is buckled and my seat back and tray table are in their full, locked, upright position as I fly off in pursuit of justice. Well, actually I’m just going to take a deposition, but that’s all a part of the pursuit of justice, isn’t it?

When I arrive at my destination airport, I still haven’t reached my destination. I have to either rent a car or find a taxi to transport me to the lawyer’s office where the deposition will take place. This takes some time. In fact, it often takes me longer to rent a car or find a cab and drive or ride to the lawyer’s office than it took me to fly from Memphis to the destination airport.

But I’ve recently discovered a wonderful new innovation that allows me to get my own driver within a matter of minutes to take me wherever I need to go. It’s called “Uber.”

Uber is a national transportation network that allows you to summon your own “Uber cab” by tapping a trip request on an app on your iPhone.

Like most modern devices, it was introduced to me by one of my grown children. I was recently visiting my daughter in Washington, D.C. when I tried to summon a cab to take us to a restaurant for dinner. My princess said, “Daddy, let’s just call for an Uber!”

I had no idea what she was talking about. I then watched her pull out her iPhone, tap on it, and in less than two minutes, a very nice young man in a very clean car pulled up beside us and quickly transported us to dinner!

During our dinner, my daughter took my smarter-than-I-am phone and promptly installed an “Uber app” and showed me how to use it.

Since that time, I’ve been able to summon my own personal driver wherever I am in the world within just a matter of minutes. And I don’t even have to pay the Uber driver anything! Well, I pay him, because my smarter-than-I-am phone has all my credit card information in it, and so the Uber driver gets paid by my really smart phone.

In stark contrast to many of the cabs I’ve ridden in many of the big cities across America, Uber cars are always clean and smell good. They don’t use that industrial-strength air freshener I smell in so many cabs that actually make the interior of a cab stink rather than smell good. As my favorite comedian, Jerry Seinfeld, once asked about New York cab air fresheners, “Does cherry BO smell better than BO?”

Uber cabs have become a modern business model, a trend that is now being called “Uberification.”

You can now access similar Uber-type services as there are a wide variety of “Uber start ups” in the American economy. You can now use your iPhone or smart phone to have your groceries purchased and delivered, summon a handyman, get your clothes cleaned, and even walk your dog!

It’s a new mobile app world in which virtually everything is literally at your fingertips.

And so, I’m pleased to announce today that I’m starting a wonderful new service: “Uber Lawyer!”

You read that right, Airbnb-breath! From now on I will not be practicing law as “William H. Haltom Jr., Esquire,” or “a member of the firm of Lewis, Thomason, Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered.”

As an Uber lawyer, anyone with a smarter-than-they-are phone will be able to install my Uber lawyer app and immediately summon me or one of my thousands of independent contractor lawyers to their side within minutes to respond to any legal crisis.

I will be just the opposite of an ambulance chaser, as my clients will be chasing me!

I’ll be similar to Homer Simpson’s great lawyer, Lionel Hutz, whose slogan was “Your case won in 30 minutes or your pizza is free!”

As “Uber lawyer” I’m actually getting out ahead of many Tennessee lawyers who are already running TV ads across the state announcing how you can quickly get in touch with them whenever you have the need for an instant lawyer!

For example, the best-known lawyer in my hometown of Memphis is not Lewis Donelson or Mike Cody or Joe Brown (star of the hit TV series “Judge Joe Brown”). No, the best-known lawyer in Memphis is my friend Corey B. Trotz.

Corey is on Memphis TV 24/7 with TV commercials that feature the following jingle:

Corey B. Trotz is the way to go.
Call six-eight-three-seven-oh-oh-oh!

It’s such an incredibly effective jingle that everyone in the city of Memphis knows Corey’s phone number. Heck, I can’t even remember my own phone number, but I know Corey’s!
Other firms proudly announce, “One call, that’s all!” And another firm advertises that you can immediately reach one of their lawyers by dialing “#Law”!

But only an Uber lawyer like Lionel Hutz or me promises to be by your side within minutes or your pizza is free!

And finally, on behalf of the world-wide Uber Lawyer network, I make you another promise. Your Uber lawyer will be clean and smell good, as we will spray each of them with industrial-strength air freshener!
 

BILL HALTOM is a shareholder with the firm of Lewis Thomason. He is a past president of the Tennessee Bar Association and a past president of the Memphis Bar Association. Read his blog at www.billhaltom.com.