Over eighty percent of all private practice lawyers work as solo practitioners or for small law firms. This eighty percent are able to run successful operations by providing high quality legal work. For the most part, these lawyers and firms are able to provide this type of high quality legal work because they offer niche or more narrowly specialized legal services.
Internet and technology have made this possible. Most consumers today research lawyers online before they decide to contact them. A simple website can go a long way. However, study after study and testimonial after testimonial shows that the vast majority of legal consumers will contact a friend, acquaintance or family member who is a lawyer to ask for a referral before they do anything else.
This type of lawyer-to-lawyer referral is the solo and small firm attorney’s bread and butter. The question for lawyers who are trying to market their legal services is then, “how do I effectively and efficiently let other lawyers that I am here, that I specialize in this type of law, and that I would like to receive referrals?”
Many solo and small firm attorneys have answered this question by focusing their energies on legal networking. Legal networking can bring in business, but it also takes a lot of time and expense and it takes away from generating billable hours. Most lawyers do not have time to eat lunch every day, yet alone to “do” lunch every day. Thus, this solution is simply not practical. This is where a new lawyer networking service called LawRex.com comes in.
Using LawRex, attorneys can help clients find other lawyers who have the interest, ability and time to handle particular legal matters. In exchange for submitting those cases to other LawRex attorneys, the lawyer receives LawRex points. Those LawRex points can then be used to express an interest in cases submitted to LawRex by other members. This creates a legal referral market.
This lawyer network can help equalize the competitive advantage that large law firms now possess. Specifically, large law firms are able to earn significant profits because they are big, not necessarily because they provide good legal service. The reason for this is that they are more visible and when they have one client, they can convince that client to use the firm for its other legal needs.
By way of example, a lawyer at a large law firm who is preparing an estate plan prepared might suggest that the client have the firm’s tax or real estate department look over the client’s business holdings, investments, or employee benefits. These inter-firm lawyer-to-lawyer referrals can significantly add to a firm’s bottom line. This is exactly what LawRex hopes to provide to the solo and small firm lawyers – a legal network that puts the members in an equal footing with the larger law firms.
You can find out more about LawRex by visiting our How it Works page.
