How law firms can protect consumers from unscrupulous Will-writers

A recent BBC Panorama expose of fraudulent and unscrupulous independent will-writing firms has highlighted the vulnerability of many consumers when making decisions about who to turn to for help on issues to do with the law. Many will have little or no previous experience of dealing with legal matters and, as several surveys have shown, fear that the cost of using a qualified solicitor will be prohibitive. This makes them open to exploitation by the unscrupulous and, as demonstrated by this programme, can lead to extremely negative press for legal service providers, with the whole sector in danger of being tarred by the same brush.

And, even though the Law Society has put a lot of money and effort into raising the profile and credibility of solicitors with its “Your solicitor – qualified to answer” campaign, many consumers will still make decisions on which legal service provider to use based on costs.

So what can law firms do to address this (perhaps misguided,) but very real fear that many consumers have about the cost of using a qualified solicitor? And, by doing so, ensure they have easy access to legal expertise and protection from the unscrupulous.

Where the service required is essentially a legal document, as in the example of a Will, it is possible to automate the production process to the extent that cost to deliver it is substantially reduced. And, when a Q&A is offered online as part of a solicitors’ service (as in the DirectLaw solution) the cost to the law firm is reduced even further. This means the law firm is in a position to offer a valuable proposition at fees that attract consumers but maintain a good profit for the firm. And, because all documents are still required to be checked, amended and approved by the solicitor, there is a double benefit – it leaves the solicitor in full control, while the consumer has the reassurance of knowing that their legal matter is being dealt with by a qualified professional.

As the legal services market becomes more competitive with new non-traditional providers entering it and consumers becoming more educated about their choices, law firms need to look for ways to meet client demand for affordability, convenience as well as quality. An online client-facing legal document service delivered from the law firm’s website offers a simple, but highly effective way serve consumers cost effectively without undermining the professionalism and quality of the solicitor.

DirectLaw in 1 minute 55 seconds

We were at Legal IT 2010 and our Chairman, Richard Cohen, was interviewed about DirectLaw.

It’s a useful movie as it sums up why you should consider DirectLaw for your Practice.

It’s not about being big or small. It’s about being smart in the capture process.

You may have read our article “How to capture a client in 46 seconds.’ This dealt with inbound calls from prospective clients on the telephone, and how to use Directlaw to hook them through the web.

But have you ever thought about creating ‘hooks’ on your website to capture online clients as well? It’s all well and good driving traffic to your site, but the real trick is to get them to engage from your webpage, because we now live in a ‘click to solution’ world, and for most law firm websites, the ‘solution’ part of that process is not always apparent. So here’s a scenario for you to consider:

I was talking to a commercial lawyer yesterday. During our conversation he said, “I charge £50 for anyone who calls me for an initial advice chat.” His view was that a relatively minimal charge for a service like a business start up acts as a filter to discern between the ‘serious’ and the ‘not so serious’ (or perhaps between the ‘price hunters’ and the ‘value gatherers’).

Interesting. But here is the really interesting bit – he continued with: “I convert 75% of those to further work that develops from that call.”

Impressive. So we banged our heads together and came up with an even better and more efficient way he could use his fixed-fee DirectLaw site to drive more inbound via his website. It goes something like this.

1. He creates a button and narrative on his own site. Something like: “Thinking of setting up your own business but want to chat through the legal issues first? Then click here to arrange for a one to one call. We will provide 60 minutes advice for £50.00″ In fact, he could create numerous buttons for different departments, for example a family/divorce call, an employment call etc. He could also SEO those pages to drive more traffic.
2. That button provides a link to his firms DirectLaw legal advice phone call facility.
3. A client (existing or prospective) visits the site who is one of the ‘invisibles’ (people looking at your site though you don’t know it, nor what to do to attract them if you did). The Client likes the offer so clicks the button.
4. The client is taken to a registration page (assuming they are not already registered).
5. They pay for the service via a secure and compliant portal using a credit card, accepting the firm’s Rule 2 during the process and stating the nature of their query, along with a time when they would like to be called, contact details etc.
6. The lawyer receives the request in their in-box and responds by phone. The client has moved from online capture to human contact, which is where the lawyer wants them to be.
7. The Lawyer chats to the client as the money is in the bank.

Brilliant, because that cost to call the client,  - your time spent, even if it goes nowhere  -has been de-risked: the client has paid for it.

Now let’s make it even better. During the chat the lawyer decides that the client needs a document, for example a shareholder agreement. The lawyer sets up a firm-branded DirectLaw client account during the phone call (takes less than a minute – the client gets an email with the login details) and attaches the shareholder agreement it to the clients account. The client logs in, completes the initial draft and then submits it back to the lawyer. (Remember, the client can only draft the document, they cannot print or use it without the lawyer telling the system that they can).
The lawyer reviews the document, adds clauses, makes some amendments and generally does all that stuff that lawyers do really well.

A question for you. Do you think the clients desire to shop around and look at other firms has increased or decreased?

Want to go even better? Let’s say the lawyer targets a group of people, an affinity, an employee group with a promotional code that gives a 10% discount on any booked calls (or documents) made online in the month of July 2010. The lawyer designs the promo code in their DirectLaw back office, and distributes it. Anyone who uses the code in July to buy an advice call will automatically have 10% taken off their bill. If they try to buy on 1st July there will be no discount.

Minimal work for the law firm, but this opens up a whole world of marketing opportunity.

So the upshot off all this…the moral of the story? It isn’t about being big or small, it is about being smart. And the smart cookies who understand and deploy tools that will put them a step ahead of the competition (i.e other law firms) will be the ones who have little to worry about…

The Great Mental Capacity (online) Question (and answer)

There is a theme that constantly occurs when presenting DirectLaw to law firms which revolves around mental capacity.

In fact I have been chatting it through with a firm just a few minutes ago.

I have blogged about this before but I think it is critical so am re-emphasising.

Let me give you some background.

I’ll use the example of say a will or LPA. Your Head of Department (HOD) will probably raise the concern that online means that the client gets the document and how the heck do they know if it has been completed by the actual client or some friend/relative who happens to be a significant beneficiary.

So the HOD takes the view that they should stand well away from delivering services online, even though it stands to make his Department SERIOUS profit, (happy to show you if you want).

With regard to DirectLaw, they are misguided in this view.

All DirectLaw does is present the relevant questions in front of the client, securely online, in your branded website, to complete and submit. A bit like your standard questionnaire that you may send out in the post that is destined for the clients kitchen drawer. With DirectLaw the client NEVER gets a hold of the document until you decide.

Plus harness our ‘Quickclick Registration’ tool and you start to really motor.

The difference with DirectLaw versus a paper questionnaire is that it is smarter, more engaging and a document draft can be turned around from start to your desktop in about 27 minutes. It doesn’t just do the data capture that your paper questionnaire does. No. It also takes that data, saves you re-inputting it, (assuming the clients handwriting is legible), and presents it as an initial draft for you in Word. This takes cost out of your process.

Some clients will not warm to online and want to use a paper based solution. To paraphrase Marie Antoinette, “Let them use paper.” It’s all about matching needs to feature/benefits. It’s all about offering choice.

So the objections are control and compliance. Let me be emboldened and red to emphasise my point.

At no time in the process does the client get hold of the document until you decide…period!

This ensures that you can assess mental capacity, do your money laundering or take payment if you haven’t already.

DirectLaw has been built to enhance your firms offering. DirectLaw has been built with you in mind and we take great pride in delivering what you want.

So when you have received, reviewed and amended your clients document just ping them a message securely via your DirectLaw platform inviting them in to your offices so you can assess mental capacity. Or send the document out, again via a secure log in, if you want to do that. It is your choice, not ours.

What I am saying in a roundabout way is that we totally understand your concerns and have addressed them because ultimately we are about adding value to your firm.

How to capture a client in 46 seconds.

Here’s a scenario that is certainly familiar to many law firms: an unknown prospect phones up, making a tentative enquiry asking for advice. They are unsure if/how they want to proceed, and seem non-committal and undecided about next steps.

How do you capture that prospect? What can you do in that brief, often impersonal window to try and ensure that, if and when they decide to take that issue further, it will be your law firm which they will think of first?

Well, we’ve added new feature to DirectLaw that we think will help – ‘quick click’ registration. This new feature allows a law firm, with just one piece of relatively impersonal information (an email address) to give prospects like these the ability to explore their issue further on your DirectLaw site.  If the client is willing to provide it, just enter their email address in the DirectLaw Quickclick registration window. The system will then:

a)     generate a username and password for that email address

b)     ask you to confirm that the login information should then be mailed to that supplied email address

c)      offer you the chance to populate the created account with an online document template of your choice, say a will, LPA, shareholder agreement etc, from your site

…so, in three very quick, very simple steps, you can provide a tentative prospect on the phone with a login to your site, and add a relevant document template to their account that will be available for them when they log in.

What’s more, it’s highly likely that this will all have taken place long before the phone call has finished – in my own crude testing of this, just ahead of writing this piece, I worked out (from the timestamps on the DirectLaw server and the email I received) that the entire process took 46 seconds.

To put that in context, that’s under a minute for a new, unknown prospect to be given a mail giving details of an online account with your firm, and to have a sophisticated online document that is highly pertinent to their issue (that they can try out with no obligation) ready and waiting for them when they do log in.

Of course, whether the client will then go on to complete the service online is unknown – but our own analysis shows that almost all prospects at least give it a try. Which means they are logging on to your law firm site, seeing your name, seeing your brand, and engaging with your firm, and all from a typed email address and a 46 second wait…

‘Quickclick registration’ is available now, on all DirectLaw sites. Make sure you are logged in as an administrator to access the functionality. If you’d like some guidance on how Epoq think the service might be used, or need any assistance with your Admin user logins, please just drop us a line.