Apps That Fight Your Parking Tickets

By Olga Kharif, Bloomberg Businessweek

The average American spends about $232 on legal expenses each year, and many attorneys charge $175 to $550 an hour. Among other things, that means people don’t hire counsel for minor offenses—only about 5 percent of U.S. traffic tickets are contested in court. “People are essentially priced out of lawyers,” says David Houlihan, an analyst at technology-focused Blue Hill Research. Since last year, more than two dozen iOS and Android apps have popped up to try to price more people back in.

Like online pioneers LegalZoom and Rocket Lawyer, apps including GetDismissed, LegalTap, WinIt, and Fixed—the ...