I signed up for Lawcrossing about a year ago when I had a job at a law firm that seemed secure even as many of my friends were laid off in other firms. I signed up because Lawcrossing seemed like a good resource to have as part of a backup plan in case something happened to my firm. I only glanced at the openings when I signed up but didn’t follow up on any of the job advertisements at the time. I have to admit that I was very impressed by the statements on the web site that said it is the largest collection of legal jobs in the world and the number of jobs that it lists on its front page were impressive.

In May of this year the layoffs caught up with me and I lost my job along with some of my friends. My firm even fired some partners. So I turned to my options and started to use Lawcrossing in earnest. After using it for a few months a found that it was a waste of my time and money. I finally learned that most of the job openings are red herrings and the numbers on the front page must be inflated. I don’t know for sure but it looks like Lawcrossing blindly lists anything from any company that has a legal department and concludes that there must be an opening available even if there really isn’t.

This finally clicked after one specific incident. I found a job on Lawcrossing and tried to apply using the instructions listed on Lawcrossing but I never received a response. I looked at the company’s web-site and it listed information about its large legal department and the company stated something about always being interested in improving its department with new talent. I contacted the human resource manager directly and she said that the legal department has had a hiring freeze for about a year. I asked her why the company’s web site said that it was hiring and she explained that its site never said anything like that but acknowledged that the statement that the department is always looking to improve with new talent is a statement used to demonstrate that the department always tries to attract the best talent but it NEVER lists job openings on their site even when they are hiring. I explained that Lawcrossing listed their job openings and she said “Really?!?!? I don’t understand how.” I sent her a copy of the job listing from Lawcrossing and spoke with her later. She said that the Lawcrossing listing was absolutely incorrect and it looked to her like they distorted the company’s language to create the impression that the legal department was hiring We chatted some more agreed that Lawcrossing probably tries to inflate its job listings by carelessly listing almost any company with a large legal department as having job openings instead of listing actual job openings. She said that she would contact Lawcrossing to ask that they no longer list job openings at their company but Lawcrossing still lists the jobs after a few months have passed.

After I realized that Lawcrossing’s database was not credible and that it would take me way too much effort to try to figure out what was a REAL job as a opposed to a phantom job used to inflate their job numbers I called the number that is buried in the Terms of Use to cancel but it was a weekend and nobody was available. That’s when I checked my credit card statement to see if there was a different number and realized that they are now charging $50/month (it was somewhere in the 30s when I signed up). I couldn’t believe that they were charging me $50 per month for this total garbage. Instead of waiting for Monday I just called my credit card company to dispute the charges and also requested as much money refunded as possible because I subscribed based upon misleading statements. I’m still waiting to hear back.

Because I realize that I may not get my money back because I wasn’t closely monitoring their services or credit card statement every month I did some extra research during my excessive downtime to learn more about the company and learned a couple of things. The company is NOT in good standing in either Nevada where it is incorporated or California where it does business. I’m not sure why this is or how long it has been in bad standing, but it is. Then I found out about that the company needs a license to operate this business and it did not have one. That means that I have a right to void my entire agreement and have all of my money refunded. In fact, who signed up when they didn’t have a license or while they were not in good standing in CA can get a refund of all of their money. People should stay away from Lawcrossing.

During these tough times every penny counts. I may just bring a lawsuit myself but am interested in turning it into a class action. I’m interested if there is anyone else interested in joining a class action lawsuit, potentially as the named plaintiff.