Internet Newsletter for Lawyers |
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1. Are you using any marketing websites, and if so, which?
2. If "no" - have you considered doing so and what are your views on this topic?
3. If "yes", please continue with these questions.
How much have you paid to be on the "panel"?
4. How many possible clients have been referred to you?
5. How many actual clients has this lead to?
6. Do you think this has been a useful exercise?
7. Any other comments you may have.
Here are the replies, just "neatened" a little, in roughly the order I received them, and separated with a horizontal line. Most of the replies were from England but I have indicated Scottish and Irish replies.
I have removed contact details so as not to cause anyone embarrassment and also removed the actual questions, to keep this section to a reasonable size.
Responses from suppliers are placed together at the end of this page here.
1.Not using any.
2.Don't plan to use any.
I think there is an outside chance of one of these portals working well but this will only be for a short time as bigger firms move in on them. For smaller firms, it is better to move fast and get onto the next marketing step whilst the bigger players then pile into the area we are by then getting out of! You also need big marketting budgets which small firms don't have. My view is that innovation in marketing gets your name around best and costs very little in cash...but a lot in time and effort.
We don't believe in paying for these marketing sites. We are, however, listed on two free sites.
We are listed on LawJunction and Divorce Online. LawJunction enables a Solicitor to quote for work (I assume with the object of being the lowest bidder and therefore getting the work). We get 1 or 2 requests for quotes per month (most of which are complete time-wasters). We have yet to have a quote accepted.
Divorce Online only list a few Solicitors to whom they refer enquiries. We get occasional referrals from them, mostly high quality.
I am highly suspicious of some of the claims of the pay sites and they don't seem to be able to guarantee any level of return for the initial outlay (indeed they are not even able to give an assurance that they will remain in business from one week to the next).
1. Lawjunction and Yell.com
I think that we are also on a number of other free lists, eg the Emplaw list of solicitors who do employment work. I have tried to publicise my site as much as I can by arranging reciprocal links with other sites and I know that I am on quite a few lists of legal and housing sites. I have not paid to subscribe to any marketing sites, other than Yell (which is rather different, although even so I am not particularly happy with the return on my fee to them).
2. I have been approached on a number of occasions but have always refused to pay for links or referrals. I only partake in Lawjuction because it is free. I would much prefer to develop my own site so people come direct to me and instruct me direct rather than going through a middle man and becoming dependant upon him (or 'it' if it is a company) I will answer the rest of the questions on the basis of my experience with Lawjunction
3. Nothing
4. I have responded to several referrals, I cannot remember how many. As you may know, it is then up to the client whether the response (or 'quotation') from the solicitor is accepted
5. Only one client has ever 'accepted' my quote. However the client then failed to follow it up (although I suppose he could still do so as it was not that long ago). So the exercise has in reality lead to no clients at all.
I suspect that that particular client was rather hoping that I would send my advice in advance of his sending me his cheque. Unfortunately for him I made it clear that I was not prepared to do this! In any event it was not a case I was particularly anxious to take on, or which would have resulted in anything other than minimal fees.
6. Not really. I am considering withdrawing from Lawjunction as it is a bit of a bother looking at the referrals to give quotes which never lead to anything
7. I think that the companies who set up these referral sites are over optimistic about their prospects of success, certainly at the start. I am not aware of any major financial successes, although I could be wrong.
Ireland
Such sites if they are for referral for Personal Injury work are now caught by the prohibition in the new Solicitors Act here in the Republic which bans Solicitors from receiving P.I. work from such sites. This is related to an overall ban on advertising for P.I.work introduced over here.
1. No
2. Yes. But not entirely sure how cost effective. View is that I do not think there is any guarantee and no way one can monitor.
Scotland
1)We are registered with legal pulse
3)I have paid nothing to be on the panel - this is perhaps because I am seen as a net asset to them as I am willing to assist with ideas
4)Very few so far despite what I think has been a good marketing campaign and an excellent site run by really good people
5)None
6)Yes - I think for this to work simply putting a site on the web will achieve precisely nothing. It has to be followed by a great deal of marketing and, believe me, that is where the entire budget can be eaten up with poor return for some time to come.
Ireland
1. No, we are not.
2. The use of such sites has been discussed in general terms. None exist in Ireland at present. What type of traffic would be targeted? What areas of work would be the focus? My personal view is that the Irish legal services market place is so small in real terms and the key business relationships are essentially personality driven, that the usefulness of such a site is questionable in an Irish context. I would be very sceptical.
Scotland
I have never used or considered using one of these marketing websites. I have visited some of them, but I am dubious of whether they provide value for money to the subscribing solicitor.
We have been tapped by 2 websites. One was very cheap at £75 and went bust about 2 months after getting our money. No referrals arose. The other was a bit more expensive at £250 for 2 years. Again this has lead to no referrals and in fact, they too have now gone the way of so many dotcom companies and are no longer trading.
1. No.
2. We have been approached by many of these sites, some of which have already disappeared. As a niche firm it was hard to see what they could provide. We are in any case very sceptical of the value of even paper directories such as Legal 500 or Chambers.
Some of these companies turned out to be further examples of parasites jumping on a bandwagon, taking all they can whilst giving as little as possible. We would avoid them like the plague.
We don't belong to any of these panels - mostly because they target consumers for work we don't do. The only one I've noticed that we do get lots of visitors from is emplaw - to our main site - but whether they go on to make enquiries about our services, I know not!
Scotland
1. No
2. We have considered these services. Whilst we have a large private client department a lot of our work is repeat business for commercial and local authority/government type clients. These online services appear to be of more relevance to private clients. Because of doubts about the effectiveness of such sites though and concerns about the quality of any private client business they might refer to us we have decided not to pay for such a service. Our experience has been that whether such introducer services are online or phone based they tend to pull in lower quality work - the sort attracted by adverts on daytime television!!
1. No (but my details are on the Law Society pages)
2. Yes, not convinced
3. I think they speak to a small market, perhaps more suited to a GP solicitor than a specialist. Those who trawl the web to find a supplier are probably imbued with the "if it's on the web it must be free" mentality. I'm too mean to pay for advertising (for example I gave up even the Yellow Pages as wholly non-cost-effective, producing, over two years, NO enquiries at all).
4. I can't find me on your site - perhaps because I don't do free initial anything and don't have a website since I think they are an expense that is not of much use.
1 No
2 No
I am not using any marketing databases at the moment, save for the Yell.com connection. I am not convinced that the true marketing database option works. I need to be shown that real quality work would result. Although I have only a basic web site, it promotes an excellent first impression, which leads to new clients making contact, particularly if they have been recommended to me by a third party or if they have seen my yellow pages advert. New contacts can see from my web site what services we provide and they get a feel of our approach to client care. It follows that I believe that having a good web site is more important than signing up to a marketing database.
1. No
2. Yes - but: we are an old established market town firm that relies heavily on local good will and client recommendation for new instructions. I have yet to be convinced that the odd hit on a web site would lead to substantial worthwhile new leads.
1. No.
2. We have never considered using these,
1. No.
2. Firstly there are so many and it is so difficult to assess their veracity and real likelihood of success. Many don't seem to understand the profession and just think we're a soft touch - well maybe we are! There is no costs benefit analysis available. Many of the firms I work for are small localised players who can't or don't yet want to get business form Newcastle to be done in Hampshire so what's the point? Conveyancing referrals is a good case in point where more and more estate agent chains are hooking up with centralised " distribution depots" through which all work is farmed out often electronically
I don't have much to offer in respect of your questionnaire, but I have been approached - mainly by e-mail - in relation to such sites, "Police Oracle" being the latest. As this firm is a specialist (and I am SFLA accredited) firm in our field, if the sites were providing any kind of service, they would refer to "the best" rather than the firm that pays their fee! I have stopped advertising altogether because I am overrun with work. Any firm in a similar position could be said to be better because our reputation is so high. Unfortunately Joe Public often seems to think that the firm with the highest profile is the best firm, when perhaps the opposite is true! Anyway, I wouldn't pay for it!
Scotland
I am a panel member for two e-commerce law sites. However since I actually contribute articles to both sites, one has waived the membership fee whilst the other is free. The sites are World eBusiness Law Reports and IBLS. am not sure if it is this sort of site that you meant. As yet we have not had any work direct as a consequence of contributing material to either, though in truth only IBLS sets itself up as a possible source of referrals. Two other comments. First ,divorceuk.com is a very successful and most of the law firms who have signed up get work from it. Second, the trade organisation E Centre has two very efficient legal advisory groups LAG (Legal Advisory Group - England & Wales) and SLG (Scottish Legal Group). LAG and SLG members have to agree to provide the first hour of any new e-commerce advice free, which seems like a really good offer. So far as I know, virtually no one uses this service and accordingly I have not yet had any business from it.
Note from delia - the url's of these, which are not in my own lists, are
We do no use any marketing web-sites a the moment and I don't believe that it is something that has been considered.
1. We have our own website which we promote in all of our marketing literature and advertising. We do not advertise on other websites apart from free listing directories
2. We considered yell.co.uk as it is a credible branded and universal directory but, as a local supplier of legal services in the Greater Manchester area, local media and promotions are more relevant to us than non-specific geographical web advertising. Also, they provide audited figures for reach or readership and are brands which are tried and trusted. It is very cheap and easy to set up web referral site and as a result there are a lot of 'fly by night' businesses. There is a lack of credibility among most providers and those who are most likely to succeed are those with credible brand names.
Ireland
Wish we could help but we are a simple in-house, no glamour attached legal team. We do not use these sites ourselves and if we need outside help in a new location we usually retain the services of some firm that is recommended to us by local contacts.
1. No.
2. Not seriously. I distrust marketing people and would rather get work on my own merits.
Ireland
I do not think there are any such sites serving the Irish legal market specifically. I have considered signing up with one of the British ones but decided on balanced against it since it is unlikely I think that it would be used by people seeking an Irish lawyer.
No, we have not used any of the marketing sites you describe. As you suggest the area is rather "murky" with the sites having no proven track record and no guarantees as to how the contacts are apportioned.
We are not using any. Some I think are probably completely useless to anyone. Some are just not appropriate to our particular client type. Some are too expensive. No doubt there are some which would be good value but unfortunately I do not know which.
1. My firm is not currently using a website, although I am considering using Martin Hubbell who are, I believe, associated with Butterworths.
2. I have considered using this type of marketing format but I suspect I am no different to many other solicitors insofar as I have been sceptical about the return on "advertising investment". The majority, if not all of them, emphasise the potential of how many people will view their site, but in practice what really obviously interests solicitors is not only the number of people who view these sites, but also whether they will be persuaded to contact a solicitor that is included in the website. I have to say that I am myself sceptical on this point.
1. Divorce UK
3. £300 or so
4. 25
5. 2
6. Do you think this has been a useful exercise? Yes in so far as we will not renew it!
7. We find that most of the "panels" are no more than frog kissing exercises. You get a surfer who will click on a link and ask a question. We find that we get a good response from our own ask a question pages on our site and then either reply or ring the enquirer direct. It works better for us that paying for a frog!
Ireland
1. No.
2. No.
1. I am not currently using a marketing website
2. I have used one in the past and it was useless - but I do not know if it was useless because it was useless or whether it was a scam
3. £250.00
4. None
5. None
6. Yes because it has convinced me that few people are searching the web for a solicitor and that old fashioned advertising in the local paper is a better and more effective way of attracting work
7. I am also convinced that I am correct by the number of mailshots and the amount of spam that I receive from people pleading with me to visit their website. If people were searching the web in any number, then neither would be necessary.
1. No we are not using any marketing websites
2. We have tried using them in the past and have not been impressed with the results
1. We use Yell.com and Fish4It, We used to subscribe to Europages but had only 70 hits in a year. We avoid all the others because there are so many selling us back our own clients, Instead we look for collaborations wherever we can and mutual links
4. about 20 each
5. precious few
7. I had 3 such approaches last week, propertyad.com, and public servant partnership being 2 of them each was £2-400 for an exclusive deal as 1 of the only 2 lawyers signed up for that town or county
1. No
2. No - N/A
1. No
2. Yes we have considered it. Our own site produces more leads than would come from a marketing site. What I remember of et number of leads you might expect suggests that they are ineffective.
Ireland
1. No
2. Would consider it, depending on cost - my practice is very local and I do not have a website, so this might be a substitute for my own site.
Scotland
1. Not really, we do use the www.espc.co.uk and similar sites but not general marketing sites.
2. Not sure these really bring in the type of business which we would be looking to attract. Prefer to work through targeted associations and search engines rather than pay to go onto a marketing sites panel.
1. Not yet
2. I am dealing with marketing via hard-copy handouts for a variety of users, and my thoughts have not yet gone beyond that. Which is where I grind to a halt!
1. No
2. No
1. Law Junction and others whose names I have forgotten (cannot be bothered to look up!)
3. Nothing, I think or perhaps £50 or £100. Whatever is was (if anything) my introductory offer has not been used.
4. none
5. none
6. no
7. My guess is that they may be more use in a general practice than in the commercial sector. I doubt whether someone in business to going rely on findalawyer.con to select me as a pension lawyer, but someone bullied at work will try anyone to get someone to listen and perhaps take on the case.
Ireland
1. No
2. No; would not be tempted.
1 No
2 No
I am not using any of these sites. I have concluded that the public is not yet ready in sufficient numbers to make them worthwhile. I do not think they are easy to find.
Back in November of 2000, we fell for www.completehousebuyer.co.uk, which I have just noticed in no longer available. We would not consider advertising on a similar site in future without VERY good references. They promoted themselves as "the largest Property Site on the internet", and the format was that there were 6 providers of each service in each postcode area. I notice that pretty much every other local firm also took them up on this. The site was supposed to allow users to find and house moving related service "using our patented Smart Engine Technology" and allow them to get quotes. We paid £300 + VAT for a 1 year period, or 12 leads, whichever came last. Since then we have received one lead on the 21st November 2000 which came to nothing as the chap was not even contactable. Not a useful exercise.
Ireland
1. We have recently subscribed to a website called myhome.ie (www.myhome.ie). This is the leading Irish property website. It is a commercial directory of service providers and is widely subscribed to. Most of Irelands estate agents have purchased listings as have many firms of architects, surveyors and solicitors. It is also used to market properties and it is a resource used at all levels of the market.
Ireland
2. n/a
3. 242 euros incl. VAT annually
4. It is too early to determine this and it is questionable whether this will ever be capable of being ascertained. As a marketing tool, no payback is guaranteed
5. It is too early to determine this
6. We hope so!
7. This website is heavily advertised and used in Ireland as more people turn to the internet. It is also well positioned in the search engines. On Google, for example, when "property Ireland" is entered, myhome.ie is advertised on a separate banner above the search results.
1.Yes ".Divorce on line".
2.n/a
3.£150
4.6
5.1
6. Not really
7. We receive more effective hits from our own websites.
From the list of such services at section 3 of your website/selling.htm, the only service we have subscribed to is freelawyer.co.uk, for which we paid, I believe, £750 per year. We have terminated our membership because we got few referrals and they were poor quality.
We became panel solicitors with Can I Claim? in March 2001 and since that time have found that we have received a good level of reasonable cases by referral from the site. We renewed our annual membership this year. We have tried some other referral sites without success.
1. No
2. The firm has its own website and also one for its marketing groups. We have not considered becoming involved in the type of site that you mention but we have been asked to assist with an on-line newsletter and a property site that offers on-line advice. We declined the latter.
Generally the net does not generate PI referrals. In my experience the single exception to this is Law on the Web /Can I Claim, which does work to some extent and gives value for money.
Ireland
1. None
2. We have only been offered slots in the local area for the National Property company myhome.ie. We did not bother with it, because we are not a cut-price conveyancing firm and the enquiries would not yield the business we could exploit..
Scotland
1 No, we are not using any marketing websites
2 Our marketing is very local, eg largely certain areas within Edinburgh. The web is less relevant, as, with all 3 offices, we are virtually the only firm in the locality. From your own site, it looks as if there may already be too many such sites for any particular site to be of value to a small firm. However, specialist or niche solicitors might find this kind of marketing useful. I look forward to reading the article.
Scotland
1. No.
2. Yes, we have considered several. One difficulty with such sites and the business model is that profit margins are heavily squeezed. The other issue is that there is little or no control over the client relationship because it is not one to one, it's one to many. And there is no way to guarantee workflow levels. In summary, using such sites seems like a gamble where the odds are heavily stacked against you. I'd rather buy a lottery ticket.
1. We use two very simple marketing websites,in that we have links to our website provided by:-
i) Our local Law Society - legalpublishing.co.uk/dorset
ii) Our local Town Council site - bridportandwestbay.co.uk.
You can visit these sites if you like to see the links to our site, which is still a very simple site.
And it will probably stay that way for another 6 to 8 months. By then I hope to have completed my second course in how
to design and upgrade a website, so I can then play around with it and improve it, and adapt it as and when that's needed.
2. These links don't cost us anything. To date we have turned down any requests for paid marketing services
1. FirstLaw and Lawjunction.
3. Nothing.
4. FirstLaw: half a dozen. Lawjunction: hundreds
5. How many actual clients has this lead to? 1
6. Do you think this has been a useful exercise? No.
7. FirstLaw is not an impartial intermediary. Either it generates very few leads or (for whatever reason), we have had very few referrals (none in the last 12 months).
Lawjunction generates a lot of referrals for matters we are not interested in. Little or nothing of a commercial nature. We have spent a lot of time producing quotes and only one of them resulted in an instruction (which the client ended up not proceeding with).
Scotland
1. No
2. Looked at but decided not to
In answer to the questions, we don't generally use any marketing websites and therefore haven't had any useful leads from them.
1. The only site I use is Freelawyer (who also operate as Legal Shop). Their trading name is Justicium Limited. People looking for legal advice on "Ask Jeeves" are referred to them, and an enquiry is passed to me if it concerns planning, environmental etc or compulsory purchase issues.
4. I have to say that the site has not been very productive for me. Legal Shop pay a nominal sum for short advices and I have answered about a dozen of these.
5. There has only been one direct instruction following an initial advice from me.
6. Even then the enquirer who instructed me was not keen on paying commercially sensible rates and complained to Justicium about my costs!
7. I have received a number of instructions from people who have used search engines such as Yahoo or Google using key words and picked up my site. Most of them are looking for a free initial advice, although I have had a handful of follow-on instructions, one of which could be quite major. Whilst I think that it is necessary for general marketing purposes to maintain a web presence, the firms which unlike my firm offer a "no win no fee" service, e.g. for Personal Injury claims, are likely to do best out of selling through the net.
And in response to an email from me saying that Freelawyer were no longer charging firms to be on the site, he said.... I paid a fee last year and was expecting to get a bill this year. Now I know why I haven't had it!
I undertook a project about 12months ago to see if these work in reality - not just from the promotional literature which you receive. My overall opinion is that these sites do not deliver what they promise in terms of converted cases. Those running such sites need to understand that a lead is not a case; that it can take some time to get in touch with each lead, to conduct a mini interview and to decide as to whether it is a bonafide case; As 'time' within any law firm is paramount then these are loss leaders before you even decide whether there is a case there or not. The conversion levels have been disappointing.
However one site which I have found to be far better than most is Law on the Web. I am pleased with the number of leads and converted cases which we receive and I wonder if this is pertinent to the fact that Martin Davies actually knows about the law and can forward cases which reflect the specialities of each firm.
This latter point does bring me onto something which I find of great concern. Whilst the client is now more discerning, any firm can register on these sites as they are basically paying for cases much the same as with claims handlers - regardless as to their specialism or the quality of their work. This is not always in the best interests of the client - particularly where funding and being able to assess whether a case will be successful is concerned.
In addition you will know that these site providers make their money by having more and more law firms subscribe to their sites - this in turn does not work for solicitors - as the more that are on any one site the less referrals you are likely to get.
I have received a number of calls from marketing partners in other law firms asking for my opinion on such sites. I tell them of my experience and that in the evaluation process I look at the number of leads, the number of conversions, the quantum of those conversions, the average in terms of profit costs and then work this out compared to the time which is taken on turning down those leads where there is not a case to answer and the total cost of registering on that site. (Overall sadly the answer is that it is not worth it - bar the Law on the Web website previously mentioned!)
No doubt however that in getting a good write up here - Law on the Web will attract lots of new firms to join it and I will suffer as we will not get the cases we are used to!
Scotland
1. No
2. We are very sceptical though I think that this reflects a fairly conservative approach to marketing in general.
The answer to 1. of your questionnaire is "No".
1. None as such. However, we have advertised on the odd portal site such as Propertymall.com on an ad hoc basis.
2. We will be concentrating on re-hauling our own websites and will consider the options for using marketing websites following this.
1. We have basic free line entries on some of the sites referred to on your 'selling' listing.
2. The firm consider the cost can be high on paid sites with no guarantee of referrals. For interest we have an interactive site also accessed from our 'brochure' web page which brings in little response. We assume the public are not keen on submitting private info on line.
1. Our website having only just been finished and polished off, the only marketing website we have subscribed to so far are the free ones we could find and Yell.com.
3. Yell.com costs £239 basic package plus £50 for each enhanced category (ie compensation claims, conveyancing, etc).
4. Our website only goes live on Yell in mid-July so none so far.
7. Not having an IT expert in a small office is a problem when marketing websites. It seems we will have to pay someone to show us how to do it.
Ireland
To answer your questions there are none in existence to my knowledge in
Ireland although I may be mistaken.
Secondly we have never considered becoming involved in such a scheme . we
are of course always open to new marketing ideas and I would imagine that
the decision to become involved in such a scheme would greatly depend on the
type of lawyers on the panel that one was being asked to join .
1. We signed up with "Complete House Buyer" in November 2000 to be under the
category of 'Solicitor' and the postcode 'RH' for 1 year.
3. £300 for the year
4. As far as I am aware - none
5. As far as I am aware - none
6. Absolutely not!!
7. I had left this with the Residential Department to monitor but I checked on
the website 'completehousebuyer.co.uk' at the end of the year and when I
went on the site, on a number of times, I got a message 'Sorry our servers
are being updated and the page you have requested is currently not
available'. I then tried the two telephone numbers that I had for the
company and one was unobtainable and other said 'this service is no longer
available'. From this I gathered that they had completely disappeared.
I only wish that I had checked earlier and my feelings were that we could
well have been had and it will make me very wary of doing anything similar
in the future. It made me realize how easy it could be for someone to set
themselves up in this way, take the money and run. I only wish that I had
checked on a more regular basis.
I checked the site again before sending this e-mail and there is now a
message saying that Complete House Buyer is no longer available etc.
From divorceuk
I have received your email and have had a look at our profile on your site. Our profile does not mention the 'ask a question' service where people could ask a solicitor in their area a question. This is an important role of the site.
We do very nicely here and business grows well - we are in it for the long term
Statistics which I can provide you with are that there were 3,581 visitors to the site in May (382 more than in April) and a total of 168 questions which were asked to our members (divorce solicitors). Is this the only way you come up with your statistics since I find some statistics quoted amazing? Answer - yes - I have no way of checking statistics given to me.
From freelawyer
We no longer have a panel of solicitors that pay us a yearly fee and we send work to them. This stopped some months ago (almost a year). Whilst there may still be some law firms in our directory, they are there free at our discretion. We take no money from them and we promise them nothing. In other words our obligations to them are ZERO.
Concerning our entry:
- we have pulled out of the sales deal and consequently Freelawyer is no longer for sale
- we are relaunching the site with several changes in the next few weeks
- we are looking for contributors to submit legal articles
From: Lawjunction
The entry is fine. We are going to introduce charging again later in the year, but we will notify you when we do.
From: AccidentDirect.com
Our service is very much operational. We are now in our third year.
We would like to thank you for listing our site on your portal and the support that you gave us when we started up. We can tell you that our average hit rate is for this year around the 20,000 mark per month. We have 25 firms who have purchased space from us for this year in the UK in addition to several overseas firms. We generate referrals for our firms who have the benefit of an exclusive listing in a postcode area. We are not able to give you figures in terms of the numbers of referrals as most of these go direct to the firms themselves due to the hotlinks and email details that we list. Our listing price is currently £499.00 to be listed as the only firm in 2 whole postcode areas until 31/3/03. Different tariffs apply to overseas firms.
From law4today
Thanks for your email. Your description is still accurate. We have approx 520 firms on the site. Our charge per office for new members is currently £300-£500pa according to the type of entry. The list is slowly growing as we add new specialities.
With regard to your second email I should like to be, I hope, refreshingly candid. Solicitors who say that marketing websites do not work are probably right if they are expecting client referrals directly from the site. We should know because Law4today.com (L4T) is probably the market leader in the UK. L4T has been operating for over 3 years and has had partnerships with the Law Society, Abbey Legal/Accident Line, ITV Digital, UK Smart, EMAP, and a host of other magazines publishers. If we have been unable to providesolicitors with a deluge of direct client referrals we very much doubt that any other site has been able to do so.
Our own market research, "mystery shoppers", and feedback from our solicitors and partners shows that potential clients are collecting and cross referencing information. They may have for example seen a solicitors advertisement in the local paper or Yellow Pages, perhaps been given a name by an advice agency or friend, and also surfed the net to check out what's available on sites like law4today.com.
Although they are not necessarily choosing solicitors because they are Law4today.com members, if solicitors do not have a presence on the net they are asking why. Are they too small, do they lack modern technology, etc.? Therefore although a web presence will not necessarily bring solicitors clients directly, a lack of a web presence will deter clients and say a great deal (negatively) about the firm. In other words the net is simply part of a network of information rather than a unique source.
This is why we have pitched our subscription at a level where the annual cost is a little more than the cost of a small add in a local paper for one week. It should be seen as just one part of a firm's marketing strategy not an the end in itself.
This is on the 'consumer side'. On the 'business to business' side the web is clearly becoming of great significance. We have joined forces with easyform.co.uk who are providing a service which gives unlimited access (for a small annual fee) to an enormous archive of legal and business documentsaimed at SME's. This service is booming! Easyform is forming partnerships with other BtoB providers such as Jewsons (the builders merchants) whose new site www.build2pro.co.uk is offering a 'community' to builders including help with legal advice and legal forms via Easyform.
Lawyers are able to subscribe to easyform to use the documents (and many do) but it is still early days to see if it is likely to be a route to obtain commercial client referrals for solicitors.
Many Thanks for your continued listing and excellent site. (He provided some updates to the entry on my site).
We are working on a series of bid4legal 4 minute guides to key legal areas and I will drop you an email when these are up and running.
As well as the free listing on our site, our "web-site implant service" is getting a fair bit of interest. We do a low cost version (not the Norton Rose style version which is more expensive) which sells at only £1,250 + VAT for a year. Content is based on the free area of the emplaw web-site. The price includes a subscription for the firm to the emplaw.co.uk professional area and a basic newsletter for clients (so it has to be good value!).
Not only do we have a relationship with Mishcon, Collyers & Yuill & Kyle but we are partners with The National Solicitors Network (who I believe have over 600 firms up & down the country). This means that we can usually introduce people to a local firm where appropriate. It also means that there isn't much of a reason for us to go looking for new solicitors for our panel.
We also have a Legal Helpline - a premium rate phone line which gives instant access to a solicitor 14 hours per day, 7 days per week. This has proved very popular for people who need a low-level legal advice but are wary of going to a solicitor.
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