Sunday, April 08, 2007

Legal Matching Services

I have found that there are four ways for a lawyer be found on the internet. They are:
Legal Directories such as Findlaw and Lawyers.com
Search Engines such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN
Vertical search engines such Targetlaw
Legal Matchmaking Services such as Legal Connection by Findlaw and Legal Match

I want to talk about the matching services today. These services use pay per click to attract intenet searchers to matching webpage. On this webpage, there are usually 8-10 practice areas such as immigration law, personal injury, criminal law, and divorce law. The visitor chooses the practice area then fills out a lengthy form about the particulars of their legal issue. At this point the user will either pick from a group of sponsoring attorneys in their area, or they will be contacted by sponsoring attorneys.

If you are a lawyer looking at one of these systems, consider:
1. What is the cost of the service versus an average lead/case is worth
2. If you need high end cases, this service is not for you
3. If you want a volume of average to poor leads, this service might be for you
4. You must contact the lead immediately before any of the other sponsoring attorneys do. The first contact usually gets the case. Phone calls are the most effective.
5. Is your practice in a popular consumer legal area such as family, criminal, bankruptcy, personal injury, employment, or immigration? If your area of law is copyright law, this service is for you
6. What is the service's commitment to getting you leads?
7. If you are not getting the type of lead you want, complaining to the company can help increase the number of leads as the service provider will increase their pay per click in your practice and geographic area.
8. If the service asks for a picture, get it professionally done
9. Have a good tagline

Until next time.

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