Selling and Marketing Legal Services Online -
maintained by Delia Venables
Section 9 - Legal Services and Marketing Relating to Barristers
Last updated June 14th.
You can return to the main "Selling and Marketing" contents page here.
3rdSix.co.uk is a recruitment site for Chambers and newly qualified Barristers
who have not secured a tenancy. Each year 1500 students undertake the bar vocational course but
there are only 1,000 pupillages offered by chambers per year and only 500 new tenancies.
The site was developed to address the difficulties in recruiting 3rd six pupils / squatters,
given that traditional recruitment methods are very expensive and more often than not, unsuccessful primarily
due to accessing target audiences.
Daniel Barnett, a leading employment law barrister,
has set up a company called Employment Law Services Limited which provides an employment law bulletin service
to solicitors' firms to help them generate work and attract new clients. The bulletins are
headed with the firm's name and logo and customised with the firm's colours and fonts and the firm can
add any special material or stories it wishes. The bulletins are set up so that replies come straight back
to the firm and only one firm in any one City or area is able to use the service, thus making it
very unlikely that a client will receive the same bulletin from more than one source.
All the nitty gritty work in maintaining the email lists is handled by Daniel.
Fixed Fees in London County Courts can be provided by
4 King’s Bench Walk, the Chambers of Timothy Raggatt QC.
Chambers offers solicitors fixed fee representation by barristers in hearings before District Judges
in the London county courts. Typical rates are £80 for a mortgage possession hearing or a charging order,
£100 for an application listed to last up to 30 minutes and £150 for a small claims trial.
There is no VAT or disbursements on top. Full details are on the website and bookings can be made by
telephone or email.
lawwwdiary is a free service
which gives barristers' chambers,
individual barristers, firms of solicitors, prosecuting authorities and solicitors'
agents a way of finding out who is covering a particular court at a particular time
and who would be available to cover other cases in the same court. The system
also allows barristers' chambers to show that they have barristers available to
take on new work. All Crown Courts, Magistrates Courts and Youth Courts are
covered in the scheme.Each person using the service has to first register on the site, either as
barristers' chambers, an individual barrister, a firm of solicitors, a solicitor's
agent or a prosecuting authority. Barristers' chambers, individual barristers and
freelance solicitor agents are provided with a page called "My diary" in which
he/she indicates the court to be attended and the time of the listing. Solicitors,
Prosecuting Authorities or other chambers, can then look up a particular court
through a page called "Courts Diary" and find out whether anyone is attending.
As well as indicating particular courts attended, participants can indicate their
availability to attend a court, classifying themselves according to various
categories in the "Who is available" sections. The service is run by Mountain Software.
John Antell, from Godolphin
Chambers in Truro, provides reports on
employment law cases, particularly those relating to the employment status of agency
workers and contractors. There is also a FAQ section on IR35 topics.
He offers email advice to firms of solicitors on non-complex employment matters
at a fixed fee of £100 + VAT. (Take the link at the bottom of the page).
BarristerWeb is the newest member of
a new type of barristers' chambers which base their services on the internet,
i.e. providing "virtual" clerking services to barristers as an
alternative to or as well as membership of more traditional chambers.
BarristerWeb plans to take advantage of the internet to offer access to online linbraries,
electronic mailing of documents, links to courts with maps pinpointing their exact locations
and internet'chat rooms' for exchange of views on specialist topics between BarristerWeb
members. The chambers is based at Milton Keynes.
Clerksroom is a clerking service
set up by two barristers, Harry Hodgkin and Jonathan Dingle and a
senior clerk, Stephen Ward. The service is based in Somerset but barristers -
and the solicitors briefing them - can be anywhere.
Barristers will pay a monthly subscription fee and will be given an individual
security-protected password - they will be able to access the service via a computer from
anywhere in the world. The service uses the leading chambers software from Meridian and
provides diary control, case information, billing, fee collection, aged debt, VAT and tax.
Research facilities - library and case law - are also provided.
LawOnOrder is a new service designed for solicitors (including
in-house solicitors) "to provide advice and opinions on all aspects of English law and practice from
a chamber of experienced barristers". The fee is £99 plus VAT and there is a 24 hour reponse guaranteed
although the barrister providing the answer and the chambers are not named.
Questions can be up to 300 words and answers appear to be of similar length (some samples are given on the site).
Although the advice is provided by barristers, LawOnOrder is actually a company and there are some pretty
stringent disclaimers in place. According to the Law Society Gazette, the company is supported by two
partners in London firm Howard Kennedy. They are quoted as saying that the service is already being used by
sole practitioners, small firms generally, city firms and in-house departments at local authorities.
Marketing for Barristers is a new site set up by
marketing consultant Andrea Kennedy. There is brief and useful advice about the issues which arise when marketing
chambers and individual barristers and the role which can be played by articles, books, newsletters, brochures,
websites and entertaining. There is a section on how to put together a Marketing Plan, and a section on FAQs.
Andrea Kennedy also maintains the directory for barristers
Kennedy Guide to Barristers, above.
Redbag Recruitment is a niche consultancy specialising
in the Bar. It provides a search and selection service for chambers that are seeking to recruit established
practitioners. The consultancy assists individual practitioners with practice coaching, career planning
and the development of personal marketing and business plans. It also provides interview and marketing skills training.
Services provided by barristers directly to the public (only recently allowed) are covered
here.
Note to barristers 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
