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Selling and Marketing Legal Services Online -
maintained by Delia Venables

Section 1 - Individual Firms of Solicitors Selling Legal Services Directly from their Website

Last updated January 24th.

There could be up to two sponsored adverts here.

  • Allen & Overy have a special site called newchange which offers the automatic drafting of documents, a secure, web based virtual deal room for individual transactions and a secure, web based virtual caseroom for dispute resolution.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • Berwin Leighton Paisner provides a service called Be-Professional in conjunction with Deloitte & Touche which provides small businesses with access to employment law and HR services, enabling employers to draft the appropriate documents for many situations.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • Clifford Chance - London and International, offers several online services to provide clients with practical risk management and business structuring tools:

  • debtmaster.co.uk is a service for businesses offered by Silverman Sherliker LLP of London. The service is run by qualified lawyers with substantial experience of recovery procedures for collecting debt whether in the UK or overseas. For uncontested debts they work on a "commission only" basis - if they do not recover your unpaid debts, you pay nothing. There is also information on commercial debt collection issues on the site with a FAQ section. They are happy to provide a free legal consultation to get started.

  • Dickinson Dees, of Newcastle, offer a section of their site called bizdocs. It offers documents which can be prepared online with a series of questions and answers in the general areas of commercial law, corporate law, litigation and employment law and produces the documents in rtf format, which can be read by all major word processors. Further documents are available on two special sites: hralert.com for specialist HR related topics and Peace of Mind which covers information and documents for the individual.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • Howes Percival offer a site called drinkslaw.com as an On-line Liquor Licensing Ordering Service. There is lots of explanatory information about the licensing process including the Licensing Act 2003 but the user can then go on to instruct the firm to obtain licence applications as follows: Protection Order, Interim Authority, Full Transfer and S.34 Gaming Permit.

  • 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.

  • 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 Online is a site set up by solicitor Tessa Shepperson to provide "packaged" advice to landlords and also to tenants. 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), an interactive "Tenancy Trail" allowing tenants to find out what kind of tenancy they have and the implications of this, a questions and answers section where you can put a question to Tessa to answer, a glossary, book reviews, regular features articles, a monthly cartoon, and a regular newsletter. There is also a Law Reform section with information about government consultation papers (and often an answer-form where you can submit your own views to government), plus there is a directory of Local Authorities on the site showing what services are provided by LAs to the private residential sector, eg advice, damage deposit bonds, landlords forums and the like. Much of the site is free but access to documents and more detailed information requires a subscription. Members of the site also have access to fixed fee legal services eg for repossession and advice, and a cases database in association with David Swarbrick's case law research tool lawindexpro. The cases database contains brief descriptions of important legal cases in residential landlord and tenant/housing law, with links to the case reports on the Internet and on the lawindexpro site. To read more click here.

  • 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:

  • Lister Croft Partnership, of Wakefield, Pudsey & Ilkley, provides a site called 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.
    The main site is currently being redesigned but the probates site is still there.

  • Pinsent Masons provide information on new media and e-commerce on a new site called out-law.com. The firm has previously had an image of being "just" a construction and IT firm and needed to extend this image into new fields and areas of legal work - in this case, the aim of the project is to build up the firm's image in the new media and e-commerce areas. Specifically, the site is for software developers, new media companies, e-commerce companies, computer games companies, web developers, and so on. These are the sort of firms which might not have known about Masons before this site was launched - but they certainly do know about it now. There was a lot of marketing to get the site started (with the sheriff's badge logo) which has now made quite an impact.

  • Osborne Clarke offers several interesting and innovate sites:

  • 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.

  • Rowe Cohen of Manchester and London, have set up a compliance and risk management service for Data Controllers called Data Protection for Business. There are fact sheets, a handbook, and the ability to submit questions to the solicitors of the firm. There are sample fact sheets available on the site.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • Wills.ie (a firm of solicitors in Cork, Ireland) offers information on wills and probate, a free (very simple) will, and other more complicated wills which cn be generated online at various prices from 80 euros upwards.

  • 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

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