In an unprecedented April 1999 decision, U.S. District Court Judge Barefoot Sanders banned the sale and distribution of the popular legal self-help product, Quicken Family Lawyer, on the grounds that it served as a "cyberlawyer," and violated a state statute prohibiting the "unauthorized practice of law."

In June of that year, the Texas Legislature passed House Bill 1507, emergency legislation sponsored by Dallas Representative Steven D. Wolens, that provides that the practice of law "does not include the design, creation, publication, distribution or sale of written materials, books, printed forms, Internet sites, computer software or similar media." Later that month, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated Judge Sanders' order banning Quicken Family Lawyer.

While the courtroom battle centered on the legal definition of "practice of law," HALT's amicus curiae or "friend of the court" brief argued that the real issue is the right of all Texans to have access to accurate and timely legal information.

HALT's brief called for the judicial branch to serve a critical public interest in helping people understand and use the legal system. For instance, one of Judge Sanders' objections to Quicken Family Lawyer was the interactive nature of the program. HALT believes that the judicial branch has an obligation to adapt to technological changes and innovations. In addition, HALT's brief stressed that self-help products do not claim to be lawyers and that the "judicial branch has the authority to regulate the conduct of lawyers and those who hold themselves out to be lawyers, not publishers, software programmers or private citizens who wish to purchase their products."

The effects of this victory have reached much further than the state of Texas, since this case has received national media attention because of its implications for the rest of the country. For a brief time, Quicken Family Lawyer was the only self-help law product to be banned anywhere in the United States since a New York court banned Norman Dacey's book How To Avoid Probate in 1967.

Today, self-help publishers, such as Nolo Press, who are being investigated by unauthorized practice of law committees can breathe a bit more easily.