Background of Nolo

Nolo is the nation's leading provider of do-it-yourself legal solutions for consumers and small businesses. Their goal is to help people handle their own everyday legal matters -- or learn enough about them to make working with a lawyer a more satisfying experience.

Since 1971, Nolo has offered affordable, plain-English books, forms and software on a wide range of legal issues, including wills, estate planning, retirement, elder care, personal finance, taxes, housing, real estate, divorce and child custody. They also offer materials on human resources, employment, intellectual property, and starting and running a small business.

Everything they publish is regularly revised, updated and improved by their staff of lawyer-editors, to make sure that it's the best it can be. They pay attention not only to changes in the law, but to feedback from customers, lawyers, judges and court staffers.

If they ran the American legal system, they'd make it simpler, fairer, and more accessible to ordinary individuals and businesses. Their way of working for change is to publish top-notch materials people can use themselves. Americans who are armed with solid legal knowledge are confident, active participants in their legal system -- and slowly but inevitably, their participation makes that system more open and democratic. Nolo is proud to be part of that process.

A little history
In the early 1970s, Ralph "Jake" Warner was a legal aid lawyer, serving low-income families in the San Francisco Bay area. Frustrated with a legal system that was complicated and too expensive for average working Americans, Warner and a few colleagues began writing do-it-yourself legal guides.

After numerous publishers rejected them, Warner began publishing the books. When personal computers came along, he added software to many Nolo books. And when the Internet arrived, Nolo quickly created a website that offered free information and Nolo products.

During three decades of fighting for consumer access to the law, perhaps the greatest challenge Nolo has faced was an attack by the Texas legal establishment in 1998. Texas lawyers tried to brand Nolo as practicing law without a license. The ensuing battle galvanized Nolo, whose final victory has become part of Nolo legend.

Today, the company operates out of a former clock factory in Berkeley. Still true to its original vision, the company continues to tear down barriers to legal and business information.

Nolo's commitment to quality
Nolo is supported by a staff of almost one hundred legal editors, software developers, customer service reps, Web developers, and others. Everyday, they strive to provide customers with accurate plain-English legal and business solutions. They are the people behind Nolo's trusted legal expertise, great customer service, sense of humor, and the commitment to its mission of making legal information more accessible.

Information courtesy of Nolo.com