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Legal Services Link simplifies finding the right attorney
RICHARD WEINER
Technology for Lawyers
Published: April 13, 2018
There’s a new “finding an attorney” app in town and this one might be a game-changer.
Legal Services Link, out of Chicago, takes an idea developed by apps like Uber and applies it to finding the right lawyer, said company founder Matt Horn.
Horn, a 2007 grad of Chicago Marshall Law School, said that he noticed that it was difficult for attorneys and potential clients alike to find the right attorney, particularly in a specialty.
“I just asked myself why attorneys didn’t have a platform like Uber,” he said.
There wasn’t, so Horn’s answer was to develop the platform himself.
The result is Legal Services Link (https://www.legalserviceslink.com). LSL has about 4,000 lawyers signed up, said Horn.
Much of the time, he said, finding an attorney online may not be a problem, but finding the right attorney may be, and getting a return phone call or email is even harder. And he thought that there must be a way to try to automate that process.
There are platforms serving attorneys like LinkedIn, and services for potential clients like AVVO, but these fell short of what he thought people needed, which was a way to find specific attorneys and to get them to respond to a question in a usable amount of time.
LSL has a very simple platform that connects attorneys across the country with potential clients or with other attorneys seeking a specialized lawyer. The service is designed for solo and small firms.
Anyone seeking a lawyer can type in a question on the site’s dashboard. The question goes out to the appropriate group of attorneys. Those attorneys will respond by email. The person seeking the attorney will communicate back and potentially hire one of the lawyers.
This isn’t a pool or discount referral service. The attorney and client set up their own contract and proceed from there.
The service is free to clients. It is also free to lawyers to just be on the referral list and receive questions. The cost for attorneys comes in when they respond to questions, and that is minimal––$250 per year for the ability to respond. That avoids potential fee-splitting ethics problems, said Horn.
Check it out. Every little bit helps, right?