LawStore brand plans national expansion
A Kent firm has unveiled plans to set up a national network of solicitor firms under its LawStore brand.
MTA Solicitors will offer firms the chance to join a panel to receive referrals through a branded website, contact centre and high street stores. The scheme is designed to shore up existing firms against competition from new entrants to the legal services market.
Only two firms in each area will be able to join the panel, with membership free for up to a year, MTA said. After the initial period, the model will be reviewed to see if a fee-sharing scheme or referral fees have to be introduced. For the first year at least, finance for the scheme will come from private investment.
The prototype was founded in 2010 in Bromley, Kent. There are now plans for LawStores to open in Cambridge, Manchester and London in the next 12 months, with further openings coming later.
MTA chief executive David Green (pictured) denied that the model was simply apeing that of QualitySolicitors, which has already created a nationwide brand of panel solicitor firms. He told the Gazette that signatory firms would not be required to adopt LawStore branding or prices, although they will not be allowed to undercut LawStore rates.
‘We want to ensure that our customers receive the best legal advice and we will only work with solicitors who can meet ours and customers’ service expectations,’ said Green. ‘This is about like-minded law firms standing together against new competition, while not compromising their individual values and independence.’
MTA claims that panel firms will have access to support services at preferential rates, including insurance, recruitment, IT and investigation providers. Firms signed up so far include Kent firm Judge & Priestly and London litigation practice Taylor Hampton.
The LawStore website, powered by document-automation provider Direct Law, will include pages for each participating firm, distributing enquiries on the basis of region and skill set. The call centre will do the same.
Comments
Good luck!
Good luck!
lawstore
I have great admiration for anyone attempting bravely to do anything different. However, my view remains firmly that I would rather spend my marketing budget wisely developing my own brand and web proposition than to join the the masses with no confidence in their own marketing ability who follow the sheep and jopin quality sols et al.
Lawstore
Barry, you'd better get a wriggle on. They have a website using the Lawstore name - www.thelaw-store.co.uk ...
Cambridge solicitors won't sign up.
I work in a Cambridge firm of solicitors and am somewhat surprised at their ambition to open up here. Quality solicitors failed to make any gains here, and the nearest QS for Cambridge is 15 miles away in St Ives. Most Cambridge firms are either large regional firms or traditional, fiercely independent firms with a loyal following. If QS failed here I can't see how LawStores will.
Yet another home for the desperate
Not another one!
I'm truly at a loss to understand why anyone would want to join some branded operation like this. It's a sad confession that their own brand just doesn't work.
It seems to me that many of the firms who want to be branded are using the brand as an umbrella to shelter their own inadequacies. I can't speak for others, but my experience with QS firms to date has been distinguished only by the lack of quality on offer.
"... we will only work with solicitors who can meet ours and customers’ service expectations," Yes, expectations of coughing up the subs on a regular basis.
However, I guess they may actually be doing the rest of us a favour in hoovering up the losers and preparing them to disappear in a year or two having been thoroughly plucked on the way out, so perhaps we should be grateful.
You pays your money and you take your choice
What a strangely bitter and somewhat naive comment by Pro Bono. A brand is not an “umbrella to shelter under” but a way, during a period of unprecedented change in the legal profession, of getting nationwide coverage, the benefit of large marketing and PR budgets, group buying power and a strong online presence etc.
Of course, some firms will survive who don’t become part of a brand and good luck to them, but in my opinion more firms will survive who do. The tricky bit for those who believe there is strength in numbers etc, is picking the right brand.
The Bold Legal Group (BLG) has close to 200 law firm members and a significant percentage of them have recently asked me if it could also become a public facing brand. That development is now underway and our founding members are now becoming involved. However, in most cases, we also see the obvious benefit in retaining the law firms own brand. Therefore, Bold Legal will be more subtle and like Interflora than say Vision Express.
Really?
Clearly it is a matter of choice, and some people believe that there is strength in visibility and numbers, others believe it lies in a loyal local following and bespoke advertising. Neither is better than the other, they are just the flipside of the same coin striving for the same result.
I would suggest that lawyers would benefit from approaching these stories with a commercially open-mind rather than an arrogant playground attitude of "ner ner ner ner ner, I am better than you smelly pants". After all, if someday the sneerers amongst you are filling in your bankruptcy papers and watching your fancy firm-leased Merc being towed off your drive you will look back on this day with more than a touch of embarrassment.
I personally would like to see as many firms survive the changes as possible, whether they are big or small, conglomerate or individual. And if I can learn anything from the way they have stayed afloat I will do so with gusto. After all, a wise man once said "mocking precedes learning the hard way" (Toba Beta, Master of Stupidity).
As with all such ventures,
As with all such ventures, the reality may not live up to the forecast and the marketing may be such that only those clients who would otherwise be a positive nuisance to other firms will be driven in the direction of particpating firms. Does any self respecting solicitor really want to act for someone who wants a cheap "change of name deed" for a minor without regard to possible consequence, a competetively priced cohabitation agreement which can only be tailored to someone else's situation or, worst of all, to witness and sign documents for a fiver? Accessability and price are one thing but dumbing down and reducing everything to a product which can be sold is not an aim I share. Mr Green's background is not in the law and it shows. Beware!