Attorney Law Firms: Promoting For Law Firms By way of Attorney-Client Matching Services - An in-Depth Report
In this document we will look in depth at a comparatively new wrinkle in marketing for law firms generally known as "attorney-client matching services". Very first a little background is in buy. The legal services marketplace segment is expected to reach $82.5 billion in 2008 according to Euromonitor International a market intelligence firm. In recent history customers have been finding attorneys by means of word-of mouth or by means of the yellow pages. Frequently the word-of mouth guidance will not deliver people towards the best possible solution for their distinct requirements and the yellow pages is certainly not really a fantastic location to choose a lawyer I'm positive you'd agree. Moreover, in accordance with the Pew Internet & American Life over four million customers and small businesses currently search for legal services by way of the Web every month with these numbers predicted to rise to over seven million by 2007. I think you can see this is a huge industry getting larger. It is imperative that attorneys understand this marketplace if for no other reason your potential clients and clients are moving for the Web and yellow page advertising is a dying promoting for law firms vehicle. Understanding attorney-client matching providers is one new way to tap into this Web marketplace.
What I will not be talking about here is attorney-listing services. Please don't get confused between attorney-listing services and attorney-client matching companies. The two majors in the attorney-listing services arena are Lawyers.com or FindLaw.com that are used by many in advertising for law firms. With attorney marketing one might want to get a minimal listing on one or both of these two major sites. Both do drive a large amount of traffic to their sites for positive (in the millions of visitors per year). If you do get a listing then track your results carefully and see if being in the middle of a pack of listed attorneys actually does produce clients for you. Please don't spend more on them than the basic listing that will run about $150 or so per month, at least until you can document results with the basic listing. Also, don't buy your website via either of them, even if after testing you find good results, for many reasons that can be found under the Internet advertising tab on my website. One last note here, you probably don't want to test most of the lesser attorney-listing competitors like lawinfo.com, lawcore.com or attorneyfind.com is my take, however if you do be sure to track your results. The rest of this post is about attorney-client matching services.
Attorney Advertising By way of Five Attorney-Client Matching Players
In the attorney-client matching field there are five competitors for the attorney promoting dollar offering online attorney-client matching companies. The initial and originator is LegalMatch.com and its newer competitor being CasePost.com as well as a third competitor LegalFish.com. The two big players that offer almost everything in attorney advertising, Lawyers.com and FindLaw.com; have also recently begun to offer a version of attorney-client matching companies.
Lets begin with LegalMatch that was established in 1999 and is based in San Francisco. LegalMatch uses a double blind matching system. By double blind they mean the consumer does not see identifying information about who the lawyers are and the lawyer will not see identifying information about who the buyers are although all the cards are put on the table for both to see before any contact is made between them. Via an allocation model LegalMatch makes the decision about which lawyers get the consumer's information. Consumers can opt into "priority service" for a fee to talk with a LegalMatch staff attorney about their case and work with that attorney in selecting the attorney for their case. LegalMatch does have partnerships with the Utah State Bar Association, ATLA and NACDL. Membership fees for this marketing for law firms vehicle run from $2,500 to $25,000 per year (they will finance the membership fee if desired) depending on practice area and geographic location of the attorney. For example, a PI attorney in Los Angeles would likely be charged more than a family law attorney in Los Angeles, while the family lawyer in Peoria is likely to pay less than the family law attorney in Los Angeles. Their guarantee consists of extending your membership at no fee until your revenues have exceeded the fee you paid them.
Are There Legal Marketing Ethics Issues with Attorney-Client Matching?
A relevant digression here, since this model is not really a lawyer referral program, a pre-paid legal service plan, a joint or cooperative advertising or a directory listing service it is not subject to ethics rules around much of advertising for law firms it has been asserted. Recently the Professional Ethics Committee of the Texas State Bar was looking into these practices and that committee received a seven-page letter (May 26, 2006) from the FTC that was agreed to by a unanimous vote of the FTC commission members that this attorney advertising practice is indeed ethical.
Already the states of North Carolina and South Carolina found the practice ethical. The Rhode Island Supreme Court specifically named in an ethics opinion that online matching companies are ethical. Finally, the Utah State Bar (a mandatory bar) has retained LegalMatch as their lawyer referral service clearly indicating their thinking about LegalMatch's ethical nature it seems to me. Naturally you do need to check with your state bar to be sure this is an ethical practice in your state. Now back towards the options in the marketplace.
CasePost.com, based in Southern California, was established in 2002 is a second player in this area of advertising for law firms. They operate in a similar fashion as LegalMatch in matching clients with lawyers; however, the directory of attorneys is shown to the consumer immediately. The consumer can decide whether they want to remain anonymous or give their contact information to the attorneys. The consumer is limited to four attorney responses. Thus the consumer determines what attorneys will get their information. In May of 2006 CasePost has made a major expansion as a result of their partnership with HandelOnTheLaw.com that is powered by a successful nationally syndicated radio show on over 120 stations with attorney Bill Handel. This show has been running since 1985. They also have a strategic relationship with LegalZoom.com that began in 2006 that has increased their achieve. Like LegalMatch the membership fees for this attorney promoting vehicle are from $2,500 to $25,000 per year (financing is available if desired) depending on practice area and location. Their guarantee to a member is based on a minimum amount of referrals over the year.
LegalFish is a third player in this arena. It entered the marketplace in 2003 and is based in Chicago. It is a bit different than the other two in a few ways. Like the other players the consumer can input their information and post their cases towards the site as well give their identifying information or not. In a number of cases LegalFish will contact the posting consumer themselves by telephone or email to delve deeper into the needs of the consumer so they are not totally automated. There is an allocation model used by LegalFish in referring the cases to their members. Another difference is LegalFish charges a monthly fee for this marketing for law firms vehicle ranging from $180 to $750 to members that are non-contingency based practices. For contingency based practices the fee ranges from $1600 to $5000 monthly only if the client retains the attorney. If LegalFish doesn't deliver a referral to a member that retains that attorney they don't charge a fee to that attorney for the month (a form of a guarantee). Creating something of a "shared risk" system. Naturally, with this type of shared risk system, long-term success for both parties is based on LegalFish's ability to generate new client opportunities and create demand for legal providers, and their member attorneys' ability to convert those referrals to paying clients. Both parties have to "pull their weight". Finally, LegalFish reports they are particularly committed to serving the solo and small firm market with ten employees or less.
The next player in this marketing for law firms arena is Lawyers.com (mentioned earlier in this article about their directory listing or attorney-listing service) with their new Attorney Match Service. If you go to their homepage what stands out on that homepage is their "Find A Lawyer Quick Search". This is their free for the consumer attorney-listing service (this is why you might want to test a listing with them and track results). To get towards the Attorney Match Service you have to know to click on "Contact Lawyers" navigation tab or notice it up there at the very top of the Lawyers.com home page. Clicking on that takes you to a page where you input your zip code as well as the practice area you are seeking, however, it also tells you how many lawyers there are listed that "are interested in receiving your request". You are required to fill in the identifying information with other case information. Once you do that you see the attorneys listed and pick the ones you want to send your request to and wait for their replies. The fee for the attorney member is $495 per year, however, you must have a biographical level listing on lawyers.com to be on the Attorney Match Service and that is $150 and up per month depending on the size of your firm. There is no guarantee for this service.
The final player in this marketing for law firms arena is Thompson's Findlaw.com (mentioned earlier as an attorney-listing service) with their new attorney-matching website http://www.LegalConnection.com. The FindLaw system is similar for the Lawyers.com system with three steps of #1 Pick your legal need; #2 Tell us about your case; and #3 Choose the attorney that's right for you. It is different from Lawyers.com's system since they have broken it out of their attorney-listing providers completely with its own dedicated website. Their fees generally run from $500 to $1000 per month depending on your practice area and geographic location. They do not have a guarantee. They do report that they do set targets for each geographic area as well as practice combination and then will manage their marketing to get positive results for attorneys.
Well, now we have all the players in this particular niche of advertising for law firms with a lot of information. I think it would be imperative for me to mention one more item. Both Legal Match and CasePost have negative information on the Web and it needs to be considered. If you go to Google and search just the term LegalMatch and then do the same with CasePost you will be able to find details about the negative information. One location that covers the negative information on LegalMatch with relevant links is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LegalMatch although that is disputed as not being sufficiently neutral in tone, which is one of Wikipedia's requirements..
Conclusions and Recommendations on Attorney-Client Matching
Let me list my current thoughts/conclusions in this promoting for law firms niche of attorney-client matching services and from there it is up to you to make your decision:
1. This marketing for law firms vehicle clearly has some merit. This approach can provide business to you that you'd probably not get otherwise and get it to you now. Yes, you can do better and at least arguably cheaper for yourself through the right Web attorney marketing strategies (see my website). However, it is not going to happen tomorrow and attorney-client matching can happen tomorrow. You can build your own systems while using these systems and then decide if you want to continue their systems or not. They will always probably get some business you'd probably not have gotten otherwise even if you had your own online systems.
2. Unfortunately you are only "renting" the methods used to get the business you are being sent and don't "own" the business methods used. If you had the correct Internet advertising for law firms system up you'd have a salable asset in those systems and be driving traffic exclusively to you, which is better than this option almost definitely in the long run for most if not all attorneys. Furthermore, as a general principle it is not good to be dependent on any one source of referrals as I am positive you know. That said I still think attorney-client matching services are a good option before you have your own Internet advertising systems and/or other marketing systems up. You may even want to continue these companies after you have your own systems up. Having your own systems up makes you more secure and now you are at choice about staying with the service or not.
3. Who is this marketing for law firms vehicle for really?
a. Someone who requirements more business right now. These systems have a stream of business coming right now and they can send it your way right now. Other attorney promoting systems will take some time to make happen and yield results.
b. Someone who is very, very clear they don't want to be involved in the marketing process and are willing to pay someone else to do it for them even if it costs them more and they are "renting". If that is you, then this is probably a good move for you. That said, you still are going to have to "close" the consumer they send you by way of email or on the phone so you are going to be involved in marketing at that level, just less marketing. You are never going to get away from that aspect unless you are an associate who does nothing but technical work in someone else's practice (not that there is anything wrong with that).
c. Someone who is doing some attorney promoting that is not working for them or not working very effectively for them since if you stop what is not working and do this type that is working you may be able to reduce your promoting costs while increasing your revenue stream.
d. Finally, a partner level attorney who has a senior associate that has good individuals skills that could work this promoting for law firms vehicle and close the referred clients.
4. Who is this type of attorney marketing not for?
a. Someone who won't attend for the referrals from the matching service most if not nearly every working day.
b. Someone who will not have fair to good "closing skills" or "bedside manner" (Note: you can get some coaching from these firms to improve this aspect if needed and/or see my website for more information on this skill set). You are not the only attorney getting the referral from the match firm so you need to "shine" well enough to get hired. There is still an element of competition involved with maybe 3 to five other attorneys who got the same referral.
c. Someone in a geographic area that will not generate a lot of referrals in your practice area. Like a rural area or small town or maybe an estate planner in a low-income area. So you see this promoting for law firms vehicle is not for everyone.
five. The negative information on LegalMatch and CasePost is somewhat troubling to me even though much of it is from the past and has been positively addressed. The negative information of the past on LegalMatch appears to have not troubled the Utah Bar, the Association of Trial Lawyers of America and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. This is reassuring to me.
6. If you were reasonably sure this type of vehicle is for you I would go with LegalMatch initial. I am presuming you are willing to work their system diligently and have at least low average "closing" skills (they will work with you to get your closing ratio up if you need some support in that area). Why LegalMatch? They have over 1500 members currently (a good sign I think), over 90 employees and happen to be in business longer. I figure that gives them an edge in knowledge, results and staying in business over time. Additionally, their "footprint" of bringing business to their members is almost definitely larger since they have more resources to drive business to their site than the others. If for some reason you are uncertain if this type of marketing for law firms is for you then I would go with LegalFish very first. Why LegalFish? The LegalFish option would allow you to get into this advertising for law firms arena now with less expense and less risk than LegalMatch or CasePost. Do realize the LegalFish attorney promoting "footprint" is going to be much smaller than either of the other two services so they won't be sending as large a volume of business your way almost certainly. Do be sure you have in your agreement with LegalFish that they will not charge you for the months they do not send you business. If you had a good experience working the referrals from LegalFish, diligently worked the system almost daily, realized a good return on your investment and you wanted to do more then I would look into LegalMatch next. Either starting with LegalMatch or LegalFish, if you find that you really liked this approach to promoting for law firms there is nothing wrong with belonging to two or even three of the companies.
7. If you decide to become a member with LegalMatch, Case Post and/or LegalFish do remember your financial arrangement and term of membership are somewhat to greatly negotiable. Do negotiate a win/win agreement for yourself. Naturally, if you can get references of current members to contact from them in your practice area and in a similar type market to yours so much the better before you sign your agreement.
8. I probably would not go with Lawyers.com at this point. Why? Initial, no guarantee. Next Lawyers.com will not appear to me to be promoting that part of the site enough. Moreover, I'm not positive it is worth the cost of the bio as well as the fee that together will run at least $2,400 for the year. I suspect this money could be better put to use with one of the "big three". Lastly, given the consumer has a list of attorneys that could be large (search on the site for your zip code and practice areas and see how large it is for your area) you are going to be in a crowd I fear. Thus it looks like not much business and it seems no way to impact the consumers' thinking in your direction at the point where they are selecting who to contact. An exception to this thinking is if you already have a bio listing with them (and it is delivering business to you) this add on service might be a useful attorney promoting move given you are only spending $495 more per year. That said keep good records and see if it produces you any business. If not you would stop the service of course.
