Hello Expert Members,
I have total of 10 + years of wok experience working with IT/ITES companies in Business development, Project Transition and operations roles and fortune 15 companies in the roles of Business Research and Consulting. Worked for few startups as the first employee and enjoyed my entrepreneur learning.
I am working on an idea of creating online Lawyer matching portal to solve customer problems around going through the pain of finding the right lawyer for them. I am looking for your advice and opinion.
Customer Pain Points:
- No mechanism to evaluate lawyer specialization and his credentials
- No mechanism to understand which lawyer is better than other
- Customer cannot find lawyer which specialize in what you need across your city within India
- Reliance on friends, family, relatives to choose lawyer which most of times turn out to be bad decision by then you burn time, money
The demand from customers comes in many forms; any individual person can be user of multiple legal services. He is using on his company behalf, on behalf of his residential association, personal matters, property matters etc. The demand opens up from many fronts like Indian citizen and NRI who have investments in India or would like to invest and need legal support.
Business model:
- Subscription based services to lawyers/customers
- Online consultation for customers at a fee
- Sell Legal information products online for customers
- Affiliate program
- Online advertising revenues
Would like to get your expert views to validate the potential of this idea ? Please revert.
Thank you all in advance.
Regards,
Gaurav
Sagar Thackar
Hey
There are few portals doing the similar thing even online consultancy is free and they make money in person.
It is not possible to evaluate and put up correct legal advisors as they are MBA is Marking their profession.
If you are looking at A class advocates they are having ppl to wait outside their cabin to talk to them they are the ones unlikely to come online.
its not really hard to find a B class Advocate any one with 3 years exp becomes one.
the only C ones will be looking hungry out for work.
From Cust point of view online shopping is still not a clear with them legal websites are not really working so far.
only if you can tie up with say every special court and you sell a specific 2-3 sets of advocates you ll be able to maintain quality.
if you just aim at doing 10 courts to start with and give quality its more advisable then go pan india and delivery poor quality
I am a advocate and a IT consultant and my great maternal grandfather was Chairman / CJI Supreme court so i could tell you the same.
Let me know if you need to discuss further i can help you with 2-3 good names in Gujarat high court.
Sagar Thackar
Ashutosh Kumar
A good idea. But wont it be confronting the Advocates Act 1961, Rule 36, where in advocates cannot solicit work ?
PS: i m not a lawyer.
Anil
Hi Gaurav,
Do have a look at https://www.lawyersclubindia.com/
The site is somewhat on same lines and may provide lot of ideas .
Cheers!
Sagar Thackar
https://www.helplinelaw.com
https://www.advocatesinindia.com
https://www.lawyersclubindia.com
https://www.advocatekhoj.com
https://www.lawyeronline.in
There are lot more …
Gaurav chandna
Hi Ashutosh,
The customers are placing requests for lawyer services in a particular city and case based and this portal will disseminate the information about lawyer suitable as per customer query. this model do not interfere the Rule 36 which says “Advertisement by advocates in any form is prohibited”
I hope that clarifies. Any further points are welcome
Gaurav chandna
I am a user of Lawyerclubindia.com from last more than a year and indeed its a very good site. Its mainly provide News, Articles, and forums for online free consultation. Its does not have any mechanism to match Lawyers per specific needs of customers based on algorithm/automated criteria evaluated on lawyer skills, experience, city and lawyer ratings.
Any more points you have are welcome to discuss this further..
Gaurav chandna
Yes i agree. there are many more. I have collated the list and found more than 10 websites. My analysis says 80% plus are offering lawyer directory listing services and around 15% are into serious lawyer consultation and education. No one focus on technology enabled logic based lawyer matching and offer everything at one place.
1. http://www.helplinlaw.com – (good site but very limited focus on India and lawyer database is weak for various cities)
2. https://www.advocatesinindia.com — (Online directory of lawyers /advocates)
3. Lawyerclubindia.com — (Mainly Online consultation and legal education in the form of articles, news)
4. https://www.advocatekhoj.com/index.php — (Looks like a real good lawyer matching site, not tried yet)
5. https://www.lawyeronline.in — (They are a law firm)
Some more:
6. http://www.Vakilsearch.com — (more on administrative/documents)
7. https://www.nrilegalservices.com/Contact_us.aspx — (LPO)
Gaurav chandna
Hi Rahul,
First of all thanks for your inputs. I respect your inputs and find it really useful.
I cannot agree more that lawyer on board can make the sailing easy and searching for lawyer to come on board.
This portal will disseminate information about lawyers which customer seek from us. we are not selling lawyers services. We will advertise our portal services as a platform for finding good lawyer to end users/NRIs.
The purpose of this portal is to match the best available lawyer as per customer specific needs. Any thing in terms of litigation or a court proceedings will be discussed between client ands lawyer and this portal doesnot have any role in that. consultancy services is a good start, i also planned a step by step way to help customer decide on lawyer with ease and no hasles. i can detail more on that in offline chat.
I will send you the message on your mail to discuss further..
Gaurav chandna
Hi Sagar,
You hit the nail ! this is what i am figuring out to decide the right target segment within lawyer community. my discussions with lawyers till now reveals the following:
Class A lawyers want to be updated on latest things and would like to be connected to consultation, education products, articles which we will offer on this portal. They lack quality cases of their caliber at times and can look for those on this portal.
Class B lawyers are young, vibrant and need to excel and want good no. of cases. for them online lawyer matching will provide good leads to build their expertise and supplemented by consultation, and articles.
Class C lawyers can sustain and excel if they win cases and show us in good ratings on this portal. we will give them equal opportunity to them to show their credentials and caliber.
I agree. My thoughs are also to start with few courts and build and test the model and then extend the reach to Pan india.
Please point out if you disagree or my view does not make sense. Would like to request your mail ID to discuss more…
Prathemesh Apte
Hi Gaurav,
Would like to connect with you and discuss this in detail. Drop me a mail : prathemesh.apte@gmail.com
Aishwarya Sandeep
Hi,
I am a practising lawyer myself. A lto of times what happens is the lawyers who are registered with these sites are mainly focused on catching the clients rather than maintaining their own quality. I can tell you from my personal experience that I had come across a couple of lawyers who would just say any sort lies and give false commitment (real reason they dont know law and just wanna make money) and then delegate the work to others.
In order for such a site to work the site should be handled by 2 different types of people. 1 who can get clients and 2 who can do the actual work.
Yes Clients have unrealistic approach and expectations even when you meet them in person cos they are more inspired by hindi movies with respect to the court so it becomes a little difficult to convince them and lot of lawyers are just there to negotiate work.
Aishwarya