Legal Marketplaces
Like in other industries, vertical legal marketplaces are a crowded and diverse space. Some platforms focus on consumers, and others target lawyers. Some platforms offer low-cost and quick legal advice, and others provide more demanding legal representation.
These legal marketplaces try to create transparency in the way clients select their lawyer. Their aim is to offer more affordable, accessible, fast, and transparent legal services. These new vertical marketplaces will serve what Richard Susskind has called the “latent market” for legal services. This unaddressed market remains significant. The prediction is that over time, legal services provided by legal marketplaces will move up the value curve, serving small business and eventually larger business entities and more affluent clients.Popular platforms are, for example, Avvo, Frag-einen-Anwalt, Hire an Esquire, Jurato, LawDingo, LawGives, Legalbase, LegalHero, LegalZoom, PrioriLaw, RocketLawyer, SmartupLegal and UpCounsel. There are two basic business approaches. Some companies seek to link consumers with lawyers who charge their regular hourly rates. Other companies offer limited legal services for a fixed fee, powered by technology to keep legal fees low. The latter companies have the opportunity to scale their business. The impact of legal marketplaces, particularly on soloist and small law firm practitioners, will be huge. Fierce competition will force them to continually lower their fees. Lawyers will lose control of their client base, as clients are attracted and won over by the new legal marketplaces.
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