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.

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

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…

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.

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.

Let me set the scene. There are two law firms in a similar geographic area.

Law Firm ‘A’ – traditional firm with 100 year + history, 25 partners, multiple offices including one in regional city centre.

Law Firm ‘B’ – smaller firm, 5 partners, 25 year history, one office

Old world – ‘A’ seems to have the upper hand.

New world – ‘B’ could have the upper hand

How can that be? Allow me to explain.

‘B’ decides to deploy DirectLaw online legal drafting technology. ‘A’ decides not to or at least didn’t have the time to consider it. ‘A’ thinks they are far too big and established to be under threat.

‘B’ starts to attract new clients over the web but also creates greater margins by incentivising some of their existing clients to engage online with them. Clients from ‘A’ see that ‘B’ offers a choice of engagement – face to face, on site, over the phone and commencing drafting online.

‘B’ recognises that shifting drafting (where the client submits an initial rich content draft via the web) for some of their clients to online, securely, reduces their cost to serve, increases their margins, keeps them in control of ‘the process’ and gives clients a choice of price and engagement.

Keep thinking about that word ‘choice’ it is very important for clients.

‘B’ has created a virtuous circle; (cost reduction + increased clients = more margin to expand firm and attract more clients).

Clients of ‘A’ start to migrate to ‘B.’ They like the pricing, they like the choice.

‘A’ takes a “me too” stance and a year or two later decides to deploy the same tech thinking that they will instantly catch ‘B’ up and in that clients will return. But they don’t. Why? Because the clients have no incentive to. ‘B’ is providing them with what they want. To attract clients ‘A’ needs to up their marketing to create awareness and take up (cost) and/or undercut ‘B’ (more cost).

‘B’ has exploited their strategic advantage and has pulled away from ‘A.’

‘A’ has a higher cost base, (those city centre offices are now starting to look very expensive especially as clients of ‘B’ don’t need them). ‘A’ is in a vicious circle (high cost base + competitor deploying advanced tools) and all because they didn’t spend time in recognising the strategic opportunity (and low cost) of online deployment.

But it goes further.

‘B’ uses the same tech to target, (time and price sensitive), small start up’s. Their online technology means that that they can serve this market cost effectively. ‘A’ didn’t deploy the technology for this so struggles to cost effectively serve this market. ‘A’ has to wait until the start up becomes a significant SME. Problem is those start ups who have become big SME’s have been served by ‘B’ since, well, start up. SME has no need to ‘change horses midstream.’ Firm ‘B’ has been looking after them for years, through the tough times (start up) as well as the good (expanding SME).

So are you ‘A’ or are you ‘B?’

The future is not about being necessarily big, but about being smart.

That’s my theory, I would welcome your thoughts and feedback

I think they can. I think law firms who see the opportunity that technology can deliver will realise that they are not under the threat that they think they are.

In fact it becomes even more important for brands to engage with law firms because they will want to offer an holistic legal solution. Web and phone can satisfy many but not all, so brands will want to migrate more complex work from their platform to a law firm. A law firm can offer specific expertise and local engagement.

It could be argued that the work that law firms really want is not the bucket shop, pile it high sell it cheap legal services but the more complex work that requires a higher degree of skill. This work also offers a higher margin to the law firm. Sure you will have to share some of that with the brand but that is not too bad a trade off for the market access.

Many consumers will commence with a brand for a legal service because they trust the brand values. The argument that a brand will offer a poor quality of service is a weak one. Why would say Marks & Spencer’s, (having spent many years and millions building and protecting their brand), compromise the high brand values it has by offering a poor quality legal service? Would they not wish to leverage their brand values by delivering a high quality service?

The brand may be able to provide a solution there and then. But a brand will not want to ‘lose’ the client because they do not have a full solution.

This is where technology becomes absolutely key. This is where smart wins over big…and as I say a lot, size is less important than capability. To be a really successful 21st century law firm capability has to go beyond just legal knowledge.

Lets say for argument sake all law firms offer an equal and equivalent ‘legal knowledge.’ You may argue against that, you may be right but you also need to think of the client/brand perception of your ‘knowledge.’ So lets just assume for now that there is no differentiation on that. Therefore what become the differentiators are the quality of customer service delivery, the cost to serve and the methods of engagement. These are where technology really starts to deliver for law firms. These are what brands will scrutinise.

If you have a quick view of my ‘Tesco Law’ YouTube video I explain where brands and solicitors could be positioned. Interestingly I don’t think brands encroach on the solicitor market nearly as much as some suggest. Yes the overlap will be greater in some areas than others. Yes some brands may push that overlap further than others. But there is a core area of legal service delivery which is hard for brands to attack. It is here where law firms can retain their market share and margins.

So Epoq technology enables law firms to connect with the clients of the brand. But even better, our DirectLaw platform enables the law firm to dramatically extend its reach in its own market whilst not compromising on quality or breaching compliance requirements.

NB If you find the movie too small to view when playing just click it again and view via YouTube site.

Cue wailing commentators predicting the wipe out of law firms blah blah blah.

I actually think brands coming into the market should be welcomed because it raises the profile of legal services.

Now as you know Epoq services both the solicitor and brand market for client facing legal technology delivery so we kind of have a good steer or handle on what is going on out there. Here are some of my thoughts.

• Yes/maybe/possibly brands will be coming into the market.  Sure we now see Co-op but one swallow…and it could be years away from them dominating the market, if they ever do. We talk to brands all the time but I can’t see it happening in any meaningful way in the short term future.

• Yes, definitely, brands see their legal service developments as being delivered by partnering with law firms rather than going into battle with them. Its a co-operation thing. Brands will ‘connect’ with law firms that are smart and entrepreneurial rather than big and established.

• The ‘model’ will change. Law firms, irrespective of size need to think about how they can connect with brands.

• Size of firm matters less today, because technology will level the playing field. So expertise and platform will become key. What maters to the client is delivery of a solution. You don’t need a big city centre office or 20+ partners to provide a solution.

• If you don’t embrace technology you may miss the party. Technology will deliver service standards and a highly efficient delivery. Technology will be will be key and you have to think about it being client facing. In other words a platform available to client, brand and law firm. This is especially important for the last two so complex bespoke requirements can be easily migrated to a local firm. This makes the client solution for the brand completely holistic. Brand gets a margin, non risk income. Law firm gets the work they actually want. Customer gets reliable quality service and a choice of engagement and price.

online interaction + telephone delivery + local face to face =  complete solution

brand + law firm  =  happy customer

• A law firm panel is fine but a panel is only as good as it’s worst firm. Without technology and with high volumes of transactions, and the demands that a brand will require in terms of service levels, a panel-only model could come unstuck.

• Panel with technology platform…now that would be really interesting to a brand.

• I don’t necessarily think that law firms and brands are in the same market space. Brands will focus on the high transaction market, law firms on the complex bespoke work. There will be some overlap but the bespoke, specialised stuff will still have to be done by a law firm and ideally a local firm. Technology is making that happen now.

• I still think the best solution for a brand is to outsource to a panel of tech-wise regional firms rather than bring in house. The latter is potentially high risk to the brand.

You may agree or disagree with my take, I could be right or wrong on brands coming into the market. I still strongly believe that brands entering the legal market, assuming that happens, offers significant opportunity to the switched on law firm. What will work is brands and law firms co-operating to provide a high quality legal solution.

The online poll, carried out by YouGov on behalf of Epoq Legal (www.epoq.co.uk) also revealed that nearly half (47%) of consumers would be more likely to choose a law firm that offered the convenience of online access to legal services and documents over one that had no online service capability.

Some 56% said they expected good law firms to give customers the ability to use their services online in the next couple of years.

Consumers see online services as a chance to reduce their legal fees. Over two fifths (43%) agreed that they would change law firms if an alternative firm offered a reduced fee in return for the consumer providing initial details about their matter online.

The research uncovered no significant differences in attitudes between age groups, with only the over 55s being less concerned with online service delivery. Slightly more men (50%) than women (45%) said they were more likely to choose a law firm which offered online services.

Grahame Cohen, CEO of Epoq Legal, comments: “Our research has shown that more and more consumers are expecting legal services to be delivered online.  As the Internet has become an ever increasingly popular way for both consumers and businesses to access and buy a range of goods and services, the legal profession is finding it too needs to address client demand for convenient and affordable services.

“Our DirectLaw product is helping law firms of all sizes do just that.  It provides them with a cost-effective online capability, which allows them to offer their clients a convenient way of drafting legal documents online and at a fixed or reduced fee, whilst maintaining control of the final document execution”.

If you would see the results of the Epoq YouGov survey then please click here

If you want to have a conversation explaining how we can help your law firm deliver online document drafting tools then just click here. We will explain how we manage all the issues around compliance, content and how, via DirectLaw, you can enhance the way you engage with your clients.

1.   Rule 2. Up until now you had to use our standard Rule 2 letter (which we maintained), if you opted for the e-commerce platform option. If a client buys a document or service, utilising the ‘basket’ from a DirectLaw website, they have to accept the law firms Rule 2, (it’s a compliance thing). Now you have a choice. If you would prefer to use your own Rule 2 letter then you can. Just give us a copy and we will import it for you, (but remember you have to let us know of any changes as we are not responsible for your Rule 2 letter).

2.   Client data export. Now you can export client registration details to a .csv file. You can then import those details into your case management service or target registrants with email campaigns.

Simply enter a date range for the data you wish to export and then click the button, whereupon you will be asked for a destination to save the exported file.

3.   Invitation-only mode. It is possible for us to set your site to run in ‘invitation only mode’ – i.e. users cannot register, but can log in with details that you have supplied (and which you have created for them via the ‘Add client’ functionality within the site Admin pages).

In this way you can make your site exclusive and offer it at as an advantage to selected customers, so that you use it as a tool for helping retain existing clients, rather than to generate interest from new ones.

Keep following us to find out more product developments as we announce them. We’ll carry on doing the listening thing to try and deliver what you want.