Thanks to the Internet, there's now a whole new way to market legal services: Websites that offer lawyers a presence on the Internet, as well as a host of potential clients. And Web surfers are happily diving in to access lawyers.
The concept is attractively simple. Net users visit sites to obtain answers to their legal questions. The sites direct their questions to local lawyers who practise in the pertinent area of law. The lawyer provides an answer, hoping that a long-term relationship will develop.
Everyone benefits: the lawyer does some easy marketing, the Web user gets inexpensive (or even free) legal advice, and the site operator is paid by the lawyers to be part of the site.
"Getting your foot in the door and having a presence on the Internet is important for any attorney, whether you're a solo practitioner or you have your own small firm," says Christy Lovig Johns, director of marketing at Seattle-based legalopinion.com (the company also has a B.C. operation).
"Attorneys are always looking for new clients," says Lovig Johns. "We essentially give them qualified clients - somebody who has an actual legal question. Most of the cases, we would assume, would not be answered in one question, but would be followed up with the attorney and may lead to a new case."
How it works
Consumers log on to legalopinion.com's site and submit a legal question for a $39.95 fee. They're directed to a lawyer in their jurisdiction who specializes in the appropriate area of law. The site has approximately 25,000 lawyers available, who are required to respond to clients within two business days.
After the consumer chooses the area of law under which his or her question falls, the Web site takes the consumer through a series of prompts in order to form a specific question and gives the attorney all the needed information.
If the attorney realizes that another piece of information is needed, he or she can contact the consumer directly. "Once the question has been answered within the system, and the consumer decides to become a client of the attorney, that all happens outside the system and we have nothing to do with it at that point," says Lovig Johns.
Montreal-based Gledroit.com takes a different approach. It's free to consumers, while lawyers pay $50 per month to be members of the site. Founded by Pier Savard in July, Gledroit (the "G" stands for gratuit, and the name is pronounced "J'ai le droit" - "I've got the right") allows a consumer to input a specific question, and a lawyer is requested to respond within two to four days.
"The simplicity of our solution and the ease of use is really what makes it successful," says Savard. "It's a very good means to attract new clientele if you're working in a very specific field."
Gledroit.com was originally offered only to a Quebec audience, but Savard is making plans to expand to the rest of Canada this year. "We have demands from all provinces for lawyers," he reports. "Consumers are asking, 'When will you be available here?'"
Savard's goal is to reach 400 to 500 lawyers and process at least 50,000 inquiries per year. He also plans to move into the U.S. market, and to incorporate a bulletin board on the site where lawyers could post job ads or look for specific judgments.
The uslaw.com Web site provides general legal information instead of answering specific questions, but does give Net users the chance to chat one-on-one with a lawyer online. Doug Kotlove, director of public relations for Maryland-based uslaw.com, says the site provides information and resources, with more than 2,000 articles on various legal issues.
The site's affiliate network allows small firms to sign up for a monthly fee and receive the benefits of uslaw.com's marketing power. "Our site gets so much traffic, and that's very helpful for small firms that have a Web site and don't know how to drive people (there), or firms that don't have a Web site.
"We think a lot of people who come to the site don't know if they need legal counsel," Kotlove notes. "After visiting our site, they realize they do need to speak to a lawyer, they feel more empowered or they feel more comfortable with the legal process. A lot of people think, 'Oh, a legal Web site, it's trying to undercut the traditional practice of law.' We don't do that."
Cautionary notes
Appealing as all this sounds, marketing expert Michael Crawford of Crawford Reid Consulting in Toronto cautions lawyers to ask several questions before they sign up with a legal Web site.
"How well is the site advertised?" Crawford asks. "Just how well will it be promoted? How precious is your opportunity to get clients? What's their marketing plan? Are these the clients I want?" He also says lawyers should ask how the referrals work: "Is it a random selection, is there territorial exclusivity?"
J. Parker McCarthy, chair of the General Practitioners' Conference of the CBA, has mixed feelings about this new method of marketing: "Any system that opens itself up to providing greater access has some advantages," he agrees. "But on the other hand, I'm not so sure that this type of delivery model will in the long run supplant personal contact."
Is there a danger of offering bad advice? "The only liability we have is to keep the information as secure as possible and to keep the data we keep from those exchanges really secure and to match the customer with the proper person," says Gledroit's Savard. "We're only directing people – it's a matchmaking service."
"Early on we had to be very careful, almost had to walk on eggshells with the bar associations, in terms of adhering to all of their rules and regulations," adds Lovig Johns. "We have to make it clear that we as legalopinion.com are not practicing law. We're merely facilitating the access of getting legal advice."
There's little doubt that the Internet is the way of the future for the legal profession. According to McCarthy, "lawyers, and in particular small firm lawyers, general practitioners and sole practitioners, have to be able to look for innovative ways [to market themselves].
"They're obviously going to have to compete in this new world involving the Internet, and they're going to have to examine every appropriate use of the Internet in their practices to make themselves more efficient and more accessible to their clients."
As Kotlove says, "over time, more and more people will come to the Internet to do just about everything. One of those things is to find a lawyer."
Ann Macaulay is a freelance writer based in Toronto.