Solicitors Say "No thanks" to Marketing Sites
by Delia Venables
With only a few exceptions, solicitors are not impressed by legal marketing sites
on the web, and do not think that they offer good value. This was the clear
result of an email survey I carried out in June.
A legal marketing site is a commercial web site attempting to attract people with
a legal problem to their site and then "passing on" these contacts to the
solicitors on a "panel". They make their sites attractive to these viewers by
providing useful free information on their site, by working hard to appear high
up in the search engines and/or by advertising in other ways. Some of these
sites are specialised to particular areas of law, like divorce, personal injury or
property searching; others cover all or several areas of law.
The solicitors are often taken onto a panel by reference to postcodes, usually
"whole postcodes", i.e. the first three letters, with slightly different criteria
operating in the London area. Prices are generally between £150 and £500 a
postcode although a few successful and specialised sites are able to charge
more.
The problem appears to be that the contacts passed on, or for which quotes are
provided, are of very unknown quality and more often than not, these particular
viewers hold the general view that everything available on the web is (or should
be) free. In other words, they do not really want to be a "client" in the
conventional sense, at all! Many of the solicitors responding to the survey said
that although they had received quite a few contacts via these sites, the actual
conversion to a real client was rare, or non-existent.
Some Scottish firms mentioned that they do use the Edinburgh Solicitors
Property Centre, and the other Regional Property Centres and find them useful.
Several people mentioned yell.com, the online version of yellow pages, with
mixed responses, but I am not really including totally general marketing sites in
this survey.
In Ireland, I could not find any legal marketing sites at all, although myhome.ie
was used by a couple of respondents. Another respondent told me that the new
Solicitors Act bans solicitors from receiving Personal Injury work from such
sites. Generally, Irish solicitors felt that the Irish market was too small, and also
too personal and locally based, for marketing sites of this kind to flourish.
In carrying out this survey, I emailed about 800 firms from my email address
book. The 70 responses I received were overwhelmingly sceptical, saying either
that they had not tried these marketing sites, or that they had tried them and
found them of very little use. But suppose that all the firms happy with their
marketing sites were keeping quiet so as not to encourage competition? In
order to give the "yes" vote as much a chance as possible of being included in
the survey, I also emailed all the marketing sites which I know of, and invited
them to encourage their happy users to contact me (I did this twice). I only had
one set of responses to this, relating to the linked sites, Can I Claim and Law
on the Web, whereby three firms said that they had indeed found them useful.
The interesting comment made by one of them was that, because these two
sites are run by a solicitor, Martin Davies, who "weeds out" useless prospects
at an early stage, the enquiries sent to the firms are indeed quite likely to turn
into real business.
The responses from the survey are
here.
There follows a brief description of some of the main legal
marketing sites. The information given here is largely based on the information
provided on the marketing sites themselves or by the people involved, so
please check out any points which are particularly important to you with the
companies themselves.
Some of the Marketing Sites
AccidentDirect.com
is a company set up by Bristol Solicitor and
PI practitioner Larry Rawlinson, his wife Jayne who is also a solicitor and Simon
Hird who is an IT consultant. The service (free to the public) aims to
attract ordinary people with an accident problem and then to put them in
contact with a Solicitor. The cost is £499 to be the only listed firm
in two whole postcodes until 31/3/03.
Thre are 25 firms listed at the moment as well as several overseas firms.
There is a 10% discount for apil members. Different tariffs apply to overseas firms.
For an application form email
contact@AccidentDirect.com.
bid4legal.com is an online referral service
putting people and business in touch with UK Solicitors and International Lawyers who are prepared to offer
the best financial deals available. The types of legal problems handled include
accident compenesation on a no win no fee basis through to commercial property, intellectual property,
contract matters and high level commercial disputes. It is free for clients and lawyers to register
and there are around 80 firms on the panel.
The client posts case details on a secure part of the site and emails are sent to lawyers to invite
them to visit and check out cases. Lawyers bid or request further info and
the client accepts a bid or requests further info. If a bid is accepted, the details
are passed to the lawyer and the lawyer is charged £45. More details from
enquiries@bid4legal.com.
Can I Claim?
is a sister site to LAW on the WEB (see below), set up as a
specialist site for accident and medical negligence victims. There is lots
of free information on these topics on the site, which also offers readers
the chance to have their potential claim evaluated for free. The basic
information is gathered on site, reviewed and weeded, before cases with a
reasonable prospect of success are passed to one of a panel of specialist
solicitors. Cases are allocated by postcode regions, which can be purchased
for an annual subscription of £1,250. There are currently 22 firms on the panel and
between 50 and 75 potential cases (spread between the panel members) are passed on each month.
The site is run by a former PI solicitor, Martin
Davies.
More information from mail@caniclaim.com.
CMS Legal Services Online is a directory maintained by CMS
(Conveyancing Marketing Services) for solicitors in all fields (not just conveyancing).
A basic entry of name of firm, address and phone number is available free of
charge and an extended entry costs £95 plus VAT for a year. More information can be obtained
from info@solicitors-cms.co.uk.
CompactLaw (previously known as lawrights)
offers free information on site and a telephone helpline staffed by solicitors costing £1.50 a minute.
Solicitors are invited to fill in a form to apply to join the panel but there is no email address on the site.
Divorce-Online is the most heavily visited
divorce site in the UK with a great deal of free information on the site as well
as a very high number of visitors (about 50,000 a month). The site was set up by
Family Lawyer Mark Keenan.
There is a Family Law Directory on
the site to enable Family Lawyers to market their services to site users. The user
can search for a firm in their area and can then make an appointment with the
chosen firm via the site. This costs £150 plus VAT. There is a form you can fill in on the site to get more
information but no email address that I could find. For "end users", there is also a "Legalpac" which
can be purchased from the site which costs £80 and a number of other divorce and family
related forms and documents.
DivorceUK.com is a company set up by Scottish
solicitor Donald Wright to provide information on divorce in both England and Wales,
and in Scotland, with a network of solicitors ready to take on the clients.
There are two levels of members for firms at £275 and £500 a year, respectively, and a small setup fee.
There is lots of free information on the site, a calculator to work out the financial split in divorce,
case studies and endorsements from users and from solicitors. It is also possible to ask a question
and receive an answer, free of charge.
More information from info@divorceuk.com.
Emplaw (British Employment Law)
offers web-site and/or e-mail links from an interactive map of Britain to solicitor subscribers.
Non-subscribers with employment law expertise can have free listings. A vistor to the site clicks
on the "solicitors" button, selects an area from the resulting map and is then presented with a
list of solicitors in his area. The site started in early 1997 and now averages over 2,500 visitors
every weekday. It is unique in that it contains over 4,500 regularly updated A-Z fact cards of employment
law information to a professional standard as well as an excellent "superportal" to employment law
resources on the web.
More information from info@emplaw.co.uk.
freelawyer.co.uk
provides free advice and information on the site and used to operate a panel of solicitors, but it does not
do this any more.
More details from enquiries@freelawyer.co.uk.
Interactive Law
is the overall site from Full Force Marketing which provides a whole series of individual
marketing-led web sites relating to different areas of law. The sites are designed
for the individual with a legal problem and each sites contains a considerable amount of
free information as well as the opportunity to look up a solicitor with that specialisation
and/or in the local area. The original sites in this series, Employment Law and Accident Law,
are already well established but now there are a whole series of other sites. Here is a list:
Law4today is a site providing free
advice on various topics (for individuals and for business) and
a register of solicitors for particular types of work. There are around 500 firms on the panel.
The cost for new entries is £300 to £500 per annum, depending on the type of entry.
There are also business forms on this site which can be purchased
on subscription (and you can have a free trial). More information from
info@law4today.com.
Law on the Web
has been online for more than 3 years and is published by a former practising solicitor,
Martin Davies. It is a popular gateway (up to 29,000 visitors a month) for the
public and small businesses to legal information, legal news, comment, and
directories of law firms on the web. Basic entries in the law firms' directory are free, with an
extended Profile (including a link to the firm's website) costing £120 a
year. Readers are provided with access to free advice via a variety of
methods, including the internal Road Reckoner and Ask No Questions services.
This site is associated with the Can I Claim? site, described above.
The site also has two other potential marketing areas for law firms - the
DIY Law section for legal document providers
and the Online Law Section
for solicitors who provide online services. There is also a directory of individual barristers.
More information from mail@lawontheweb.co.uk.
Lawjunction.com
links subscribing firms with potential clients who place a description of their
requirement on Lawjunction's web site. There is no cost to the client or to
participating firms although I understand that charges may be introduced later this year.
Firms can quote for a potential
client's work on line. The client can select a quoting firm and enable the firm to
contact him direct. No contract is created via the lawjunction website. Firms also
get free linkable webpage-format Information Pages included. Firms can access
statistics about their quote and success rates. More details from the
"Video Intro" and the "About" page or from
info@lawjunction.com.
Legalpulse is a site particularly designed for small businesses
wishing to expand as well as private individuals. There is lots of free information on the site and
also a series of documents which can be purchased, typically costing around £30 to £40.
It is also possible to email your question to a solicitors for a fee or to speak on a premium rate phone line.
CEO is lawyer and ex Camelot director Gill Switalski and associated firms (with an advert on the site)
include Mishcon de Reya, Collyer-Bristow and Yuill & Kyle.
Legalpulse is also linked with the National Solicitors Network which has around 600 firms around the country so is not
really looking for additional firms to sign up.
Final Words of Advice
Before paying over real money to any of these sites:
1. Ask for validated figures for web site traffic.
2. Ask for details of how many firms are on the panel.
3. Ask for figures of how many contacts are passed on to each member of the
panel (on average).
4. Talk to other solicitors on the panel to find out how many of these contacts
turn into real clients.
5. Do not forget the free listings available, including these
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