Section 1 - Individual Firms of Solicitors Selling Legal Services Directly from their Website
Last updated January 13th.
Anderson & Company - Shillingford, Oxfordshire are experts in
intellectual property and other matters related to scientists, engineers and researchers.
They provide Template agreements developed for the scientific and research-based community,
e.g. university research agreement, clinical trials investigator agreemeent, one or two-way
confidentiality agreements and so on. These are templates rather than fully completed documents,
but they include advice as to how to fill in the sections and what areas should be considered in
particular.
Azrights have developed a web product called
Website Contract in Context. This is a contract and specification
for commissioning a website, with full supporting guidance about the commercial and other considerations to bear in mind when engaging someone
to produce a website for you. The "advice" is delivered through a Camtasia video which allows one to demonstrate all sorts of things, show websites
(as if live) in order to illustrate points.
Solicitor Shireen Smith, who developed the product, believes that it fills a gap in the market, where the current choices are either to consult specialist
lawyers at hourly rates in excess of £250 per hour, buy a contract template, or not seek independent advice when engaging internet service
providers despite the fact that these internet transactions are complex and significant to the future success of their business.
There is also a free product called
SEO Contract in Context which provides information about Search Engine
Optimisation (SEO) in a video tutorial format.
The In Context products will all be available for licensing by lawyers and other business advisers wanting to offer an advisory service to their clients.
By accessing the system they can gain more insight into different types of online presence and the commercial issues surrounding these contracts.
Barnetts of Southport are offering fixed price
conveyancing from a special site Click Conveyancing.
The user can first obtain a quotation on the site (prices start from £150) and can then instruct the firm
online and pay for the transaction online.
The firm then carries out the work using phone, post and email and the user is also able to track the conveyance
on the site as well as receiving SMS messages at key milestones.
Bedfords of Bideford, in Devon, offers:
* fixed price advice by email (£35 for individuals and £75 for businesses, plus VAT),
* legal documents (Business, Change of Name, Conveyancing & Property, Divorce & Family, Employment, Landlord & Tenant,
Personal Injury, Power of Attorney and Wills, typically £30 to £65)
* various other fixed price legal services, involving email and/or phone contact with the client but where the matter is relatively straightforward.
The practice is run by solicitor Rupert Bedford and details of his approach can be seen on the site.
Briffa - Islington, London, provide
standard versions of documents relating to the various areas of work, including
the Internet, Design, IP Management, E-commerce, and Technology. Each of these areas
offers a number of particular documents, for example the Internet section offers
Confidentiality Agreement, Terms and Conditions of Business,
Development Agreement where you are the developer,
Development Agreement where you are buying a multimedia product,
Freelancer Agreement where you engage a Freelancer,
Freelancer Agreement where you are the Freelancer, Third Party Release,
and Copyright Assignment, with prices ranging between £75 and £150.
Each package comes with explanatory notes and includes the text online or by email
and the client can submit the orders online.
The documents are then sent to the client by email fax or post, together with the invoice.
designprotect.com is a further
service from Briffa. The low cost service (£40 for a year, just intended as an admin charge)
provides designers with checklists of information and an informal log of their designs which provides protection in
subsequent copyright disputes. There is also a "design shop" which
provides standard forms for design businesses including graphic and industrial designers.
Users of the service who then want to formally register their designs at the Patent Office
can instruct Briffa to carry out the work.
Busbys offer a facility for
Grant of Probate applications.
Clients can complete an application form available on the site by answering a series of questions online
and send it to the firm by e-mail. The Head of the Probate Department then checks the form and sends back
the official documents for the person to sign and swear. Busbys then make the necessary application on behalf
of the client and obtain the documents which the client will need, all at a fixed price of £350 plus VAT and disbursements.
There is lots of useful information about the process on the site as well.
Business Lawyers offers fixed and capped fee advice
and document drafting as well as free initial consultation, telephone query service and email Ask A Legal
Question. They accept online payments by credit and debit cards and provide services by email, fax, phone
and post and focus on providing a different type of legal service as virtual lawyers by way of audio and
video stream legal updates for the SME business sector.
Clicklaw24 offers a fixed-fee online legal advice service.
The service is run by
E D C Lord & Co, Solicitors, of Hayes, Middlesex, using barristers
as well as their own solicitors, as appropriate for the type of work involved.
Areas covered include including family law, employment law, company law, contract law and criminal law.
They also cover property disputes and conveyancing,
personal injury issues and consumer rights, landlord & tenant issues, inheritance, wills and probate.
The user fills up a form describing the problem, pays a fixed fee (£50 including VAT) and receives a
reply, usually within 2 days.
DirectLaw provides a way that firms of solicitors can offer their clients
automated (online) assembly of documents. This is provided by
epoq, the creators of the Rapidocs online drafting system.
The software asks questions and generates the document online (the client can see this happening) together with providing background information
and prompting for additional information or options. This is being provided as
"Software as a Service" , ie. everything is run on epoq's servers with epoq's technology, although the client is not aware of this.
epoq have already put a version of this software into a number of large regional firms as
mylawyer.co.uk but this new development now offers the same technology
to much smaller firms.
Divorce-Solicitors-Online offers uncontested online divorces but
continues to "manage" the divorce, i.e. it is not just a package of forms which the user takes away.
On the client's behalf, the solicitor drafts and file all the legal documentation and correspond with the Court and,
if necessary, the client's husband or wife. Because of the automated nature of many of the procedures,
the divorce can generally be processed extremely quickly and efficiently. All work is carried out online or
over the telephone. Uncontested Divorce costs £150.00, Divorce with Financial Consent Order costs £275.00 or
Financial Consent Order costs £175.00. Costs are inclusive of VAT but exclusive of court fees, where relevant.
Although payment has to be made at the beginning, there is a refund policy in compliance with The Consumer
Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000.
Everyman Legal provides practical and affordable legal advice to
entrepreneurial companies and individuals around the UK. They have particular expertise in business start ups,
share schemes and company sales. They provide a "document store" with a wide variety of free and for sale
and information documents for both business and personal users. Business documents include
Corporate Residential Property,
Corporate Rescue Estate Planning and Wills,
Commercial Agreements Employment Law,
Commercial Property,
Employment,
Commercial Dispute Resolution and
Social Enterprise.
Documents for personal users relate to residential property, estate planning and wills, and employment law.
Hallett Employment Law Services - Lutterworth, Leicestershire,
offer a large number of free factsheets on their site on a whole range of employment law topics. They also
provide documents for sale on their site, aimed at small/medium sized business clients.
These documents cover issues like redundancy and disciplinary
procedures and various policies, such as ones dealing with smoking, use of
IT e-mail and Internet, and Harassment and Bullying. Prices start from under £5.
Hammonds offers
legalmove.com for conveyancing with
24 hour access to details of their file, telephone
support (if needed) 7 days a week and online updates as the case progresses.
Intelligent Divorce is a site which helps people prepare
for divorce, in the sense of explaining what documents, papers and financial reports they have to produce. The service
helps the person wanting a divorce - or the couple wanting to do it co-operatively - to assemble the information
and can then provide an expert opinion from a specialist family barrister at a leading chambers. The service has been set up
by two family lawyers, James Roberts, a barrister at 1 Kings Bench Walk and Mahie Abey, Head of Family Law at Dawson Hart solicitors
in East Sussex. The user does not need to pay money to start with - the use of the forms and web site is free, but at the point
that they want to submit the information to the lawyers, a fee is payable. The cost for using the "solo service"
is £780 (inc VAT) while the co-operative service (for both parties) costs £1,630 (inc VAT). These are fixed fees
but external fees would also be payable - Court fees of £45 to lodge the financial order and £385 for the actual
divorce. There could also be valuation fees from financial experts (if needed).
Irwin Mitchell - Birmingham, Leeds, London, Newcastle and Sheffield,
sell a number of legal services from their site including will creation,
change of name, debt recovery service, employment advice service and VAT solutions
for the construction industry.
justdivorce.co.uk comes from
Josiah-Lake Gardiner, Solicitors, in the City of London.
The site provides a great deal of useful information on divorce topics.
They also provide fixed fee online divorces for undefended divorce, with prices clearly laid out on the site e.g.
Undefended Divorce – £269 if there are no children under 18 or £299 if there are children under 18. They also give
information on the other costs involved in a divorce unrelated to solicitors' fees, e.g. court fees.
Kaye Tesler & Co. - London, the original firm to
provide many types of forms-based work, online, including wills, grant of probate, letters of administration,
conveyancing, change of name,
accident claims, and many more. The client fills in forms online
related to the particular type of work and emails the form to the firm, where the
information is integrated into the relevant document and returned to the client.
Landlord-Law is a membership service for residential landlords and tenants from
solicitor Tessa Shepperson. She provides "packaged" advice to landlords and also to tenants. For example, there are documents and forms
which can be filled in online, an extensive set of FAQ's (based on real questions sent in to Tessa), a number of interactive "trails"
allowing users to find the answer to problems by question and answer, and a Q and A page where readers questions are answered.
Part of the site is free but access to documents and more detailed information requires a modest subscription payment.
Law Options is a new site - and a new service - from
Canter Levin & Berg of Liverpool, Merseyside and Lancashire.
The site offers a free ring back from a trained case worker within 1 minute at any time of day or night.
The user can then talk to a specialist solicitor between 8am and 8pm for a free initial discussion
on the situation. The service covers family law, employment law, personal injury, road traffic accidents,
conveyancing, will products, motoring offences and general disputes and there are a choice of fixed
price services for each of these. The fee is only payable when the case is complete. The user is provided
with a personal solicitor and a case worker and can follow the progress of their case online.
LawSense is the site for online preparation of documents provided by
Brethertons Solicitors.
Brethertons is ranked as one of the top law firms in the UK, and is recognised for its legal capabilities in the Legal 500
Directory of UK Law Firms, and in the Chambers and Partners directory.
The LawSense site sells a range of personal and
business documents, some for direct download, others for download once
they have been lawyer reviewed.
There are 100s of straightforward legal documents, business or personal, available for as little as £19.00.
Brethertons are one of the MyLawyer panel and
the LawSense.co.uk site has been created by Epoq using their Rapidocs technology.
Legality is a firm of solicitors run by Mark Roberts.
He provides a number of legal agreements from his online "Contract Shop", mainly in the software development area.
The agreements include one or two hours of consultancy to make sure that the user understands the
situation and how to use the document and typically cost between £300 and £600.
Linklaters
provides wide ranging services in the Regulatory area with a site called
Blue Flag. The service offers a whole series
of "packages" of information, automated flow charts and advice on Regulatory issues,
Derivatives, Shareholding Disclosure, Funds, Pensions, ESP and other areas.
Linklaters Dispute Toolkit
provides a major free resource for companies looking for assistance in arbitration and ADR:
Precedent Arbitration Clauses with explanatory text and summaries of the arbitration law of important venues for international arbitrations
Precedent Jurisdiction Clauses with explanations as to the effect of different types of clause
Precedent clauses for ADR
Boilerplate Clauses dealing with governing law, sovereign immunity and service of process with explanatory text
Links to more than 100 dispute related websites.
My Scottish Divorce from Scottish solicitors
Georgesons provides an online (and therefore much less costly) divorce
in the following circumstances:
"Where you have agreed everything beforehand but there are children under 16. To protect the children, no divorce
will be granted by a Sheriff until he or she is assured that the welfare of the children has been safeguarded.
A Solicitor is required and it involves an undefended court action under the affidavit procedure (which requires
sworn statements from the witnesses but does not require them to attend court)."
Nelsons Online is the online document-producing site for Nelsons Solicitors.
They provide over 200 customisable online legal documents with many personal and business legal issues covered.
They provide step by step guidance to the process and can provide a lawyer review of a document if needed.
The site is created by epoq using rapidocs software.
probatesdirect.co.uk covering
the issues surrounding bereavement and offers a service
for applying for a grant of probate on-line (charged service).
There is also information on dealing with the registrar, meeting the funeral expenses
and arranging the funeral. Legal guidance is also available with advice on who to
call for more help and there is a set of links to a wide range of support organisations.
PSM Law Group - Dunfermline, Scotland,
generate wills online, provide answers to legal questions (for a fixed fee), generate conveyancing quotes,
and provide property searches and online case tracking.
Penny Raby - Pershore, Worcestershire,
offers a fixed fee preliminary financial diagnosis of a person's position upon divorce for
250 plus VAT. Viewers can download free of charge the Form E, which all Applicants for
financial disputes upon divorce must complete for Court, together with notes to help
the person complete it. Then they can send it to the firm, with the cheque, to obtain
the written advice.
Scottish sites selling legal services
My Scottish Law blog comes from Bruce de Wert, a Scottish solicitor at
Georgesons Solicitors of Wick and Thurso in Caithness. The blog is updated frequently with
postings on Scottish Divorce, Scottish Powers of Attorney, Scottish Wills and topics relating to Property Law and Estate Agency.
Bruce also offers a number of spcialised sites for the purchase of
wills,
powers of attorney and
divorce services in Scotland,
all at very reasonable rates with a particular emphasis on family law.
Simmons & Simmons provides
elexica,
their award-winning, free online legal resource. elexica offers an email current awareness service,
legal updates, weekly EU Diary (also available in Palm(TM) format), training modules (with CPD hours),
legal checklists (also available in Palm(TM) format), a legal discussions forum and an extensive
library of categorised web links. There are also regular 'specials' such as detailed analysis of the Budget 2004,
a detailed review of Japanese law and a comprehensive guide to the EU Financial Services Action Plan
All material on site is produced by the firm's professional support lawyers and, although
predominantly in English, includes a growing number of items (some in their local language)
from Simmons & Simmons' international offices, including the Netherlands, Belgium, France,
Hong Kong and Shanghai. The site content is regularly reviewed and older material either removed or
updated. elexica has more than 20,000 registered users and its email alerts on a wide variety of
subjects, are sent out to a distribution list of 15,000.
trademarkdesignprotection is a service from
Fordelaw, Solicitors of Downpatrick, Co. Down.
The site offers a
free trademark search
which checks both the UK and OHIM (EU) Trademark Registry Databases along with
free legal advice
in relation to registration of trademarks and designs in the United Kingdom and EU.
Other services are available for a fee.
Fordelaw is a niche firm of specialist commercial, intellectual property (IP),
information technology (IT) and media lawyers based in Northern Ireland, advising clients both in the UK and the EU.
The Law Practice of Llanelli, in Wales, offer a number of
fixed price legal services from their site including a managed divorce service at £275,
a managed divorce and clean break service at £350,
conveyancing services where the cost depends on the value of the property,
a remortgaging service at £299, a single will at £40 and a family will at £60.
Veitch Penny of Exeter, Devon, provide wills based
on information filled in by the client online. They also provide online conveyancing quotations.
Walker Morris, of Leeds, provide a separate site at
tenancy-agreements.net to provide tenancy agreements online.
As it says on the site "Our tenancy agreements are remarkably easy to use and easy to understand, flexible,
legally binding, yet reasonably priced. They are available to download immediately in Word format – meaning
you can save the basic agreement for re-use whenever you wish. All you need do is edit the tenant details,
rent amount and tenancy start date and term."
Documents include Assured Shorthold Tenancy Agreement, Common Law Assured Tenancy Agreement and
Corporate Let Tenancy Agreement, each costing £3.95.
Woolley & co. offer fixed fee family law services including, for example, a fixed fee divorce
which can be paid for online. Having paid online the client is then allocated an experienced family lawyer to handle their case
and the case is run as normal with email and telephone correspondence. The following types of fixed fee services can be purchased:
Divorce (if you are divorcing someone),
Divorce (if someone is divorcing you),
Expat divorce / Non UK Divorce (if you are divorcing someone),
Expat divorce / Non UK Divorce (if someone is divorcing you),
Living together agreement,
Parental responsibility agreement,
Prenuptial agreement,
Separation agreement and
Annulment.
Yuill & Kyle - Glasgow, provide pre-litigation
services and fast track recoveries for Scottish debt collection with instructions taken
directly online.
Note to solicitors and others who are selling legal services from their web site - let me know
and I will add you to this list!
email
delia@venables.co.uk
Selling Legal Services and Legal Documents Online