LawyerFair was recently featured in a Daily Telegraph article that focused on the legal disrupters, individuals, ideas and new business models helping to drive an unprecedented era of change in legal services.
Now I’m your typical lazy bloke who likes to distil all of his thinking processes into a list so here it is, a top 5 list of new legal models and disrupters (in no particular order and likely to change again within the next week:
1. Lawbite
Founded by Clive Rich (who we recently interviewed for one of our LawyerFair webshows), Lawbite provides an online legal service they describe as “Simple Law for Small Companies”. Dig deeper into their literature and you find a wonderful description about the differences between their approach and that of the more traditional law firms … “we have stripped out the marble hallways, the mahogany boardrooms and the expensive front of house”
The Lawbite service is about keeping it simple. Everything is fixed fee, priced in advance and based around exactly what a small business needs at that moment in time.
Described by the Prime Minister no less as helping to ‘democratise law’, they’re clearly flavour of the month having recently raised more than £500,000 via one of the most successful UK crowd funding applications. This is a disrupter going places.
2. Deal Circle
DealCircle specialise in helping start ups create investment contracts at a sharply reduced cost. The last thing a founder (or investor) wants to do is leak too much of the seed fund on legal fees so DealCircle charges start ups a small fee to handle the legal process for each fundraising round. It also has a syndication tool which allows investors to join a funding round and simplifies the due diligence process.
3. Rocket Lawyer
Rocket lawyer have been around in the US since 2008 but recently entered the UK market. They provide legal forms that online users can fill out, store and share on the web.
One of their press releases had a quote from Google Ventures’ Wesley Chan, “we see a large market opportunity for legal solutions that are easily accessible and affordable to users. Rocket Lawyer’s combination of an intuitive user-driven front-end with a strong technology-based platform uniquely positions the company to scale and deliver the type of “wow” user experience that online customers love.” When you read that statement, you have to be amazed that Rocket Lawyer hasn’t already been swallowed up ….
As Jordan Furlong comments in one of his blogs … “Note the drawing cards for GV: ease, accessibility, affordability, user-driven, user experience. They have nothing to do with the intelligence of the lawyer or the quality of the legal offering and everything to do with the manner in which clients find and access legal services. As I’ve said before, convenience is the new battleground, a fight for which law firms still haven’t even shown up”
Top Five Legal Disrupters. Intelligenthq4. Modria
Describe themselves as the ‘world’s leading online dispute centre’. Entrepreneur magazine described Modria as “the place consumers and businesses will go to resolve any type of dispute”
They’ve also been around for a while but technology is helping drive the quality and reach of the service.
They have a team of experts in alternative dispute resolution comprising of leading technologists, dispute resolvers, and user interface experts that have implemented and operated the largest ODR platform in the world, processing millions of cases a year.
5. LawyerFair
Hey, I’m allowed a gratuitous plug for my own disrupter! If I’m writing articles for nout, then I’m allowed to plug away and why not, LawyerFair is an example of how the internet is being used to aggregate information for consumers. 75% of consumers have used comparison sites; but only 1% have used legal comparison sites.
That will change. It will soon become as natural to choose your lawyer via this process, as it is to select a package holiday in the greek islands.
LawyerFair drives greater choice, competition, efficiency and transparency when selecting and managing a lawyer. Specialising in the commercial market, users are connected with niche experts who then compete for their work. Good quality at competitive prices with pre-approved lawyers. Now that’s disruptive!
Many more where these came from …
Elsewhere on the horizon there is IP litigation data and analytics, transparency on legal bills, predictive litigation software and ‘wevorce’, a service that claims to transform the divorce process.
There is disruption aplenty in the legal world. We’re braced for the ride.
Andrew Weaver is an entrepreneur, investor, mentor, blogger and Cranfield MBA. Brought up in Cornwall he has since worked in cities around the world including Melbourne, Cairo, Bilbao and London. He has extensive knowledge and experience within the SME sector across a wide range of sectors including professional services, property, distribution, leisure. He was also once a barristers clerk and has incorporated this wide range of experience into the recent launch of LawyerFair, a free to use legal comparison service aimed at increasing choice and competition in legal services. He is particularly interested in how technology and the internet will drive better value from professional services. With a Spanish partner and young daughter, he splits his time between London and Bilbao – including regular trips to San Mames and the home of Athletic Bilbao.
