FirstLAW weaves magic and trebles clients

LEGAL SERVICES: Net firm keys into soaring business, expands City list, and tenders corporate relationships

On-line law firm FirstLAW, which concentrates on tendering legal services, has trebled the number of law firms with which it places business to 300 in a year - and bagged another magic circle practice.In May last year, FirstLAW - the first Internet-only firm registered with the Law Society - had signed up 83 firms, including Allen & Overy and Linklaters.It has now added a third magic circle firm, which prefers not to be named, to a list which also includes City firms Garretts, Field Fisher Waterhouse, Taylor Joynson Garrett, Masons, Mishcon De Reya, as well as leading regional practices Osborne Clarke and Laytons.The client registers free, then make requests for legal work and FirstLAW draws up a tender report, offering a choice of at least two firms, and detailing the cost and methods of each law firm.The client then enters direct bid negotiations with those firms on-line to negotiate a fixed-cost package.

The cost includes a commission of 10% payable to FirstLAW by the law firm selected.In addition to transactional work, FirstLAW has started to tender entire corporate relationships to firms.The company is the brainchild of former Davies Arnold Cooper partner Anthony Armitage, who has added three qualified solicitors to his staff; the firm's fee income last year exceeded 1.5 million.The average fees generated for firms from tendered corporate deals were 106,000, according to FirstLAW.Perveen Bashir, FirstLAW's business development manager, said an example of how the business worked was illustrated by a recent case in which five high-profile firms bid for a data protection instruction, quoting fees ranging from 20,000 to 46,000.

'The preferred firm eventually discounted its fee from 43,000 to 8,500 after direct negotiations with FirstLAW and the client,' she said.Paul Newton, BUPA's group legal director and a FirstLAW client, commented: 'We were introduced to high-calibre firms we would not otherwise have considered, and the tender analysis report prepared by the FirstLAW team was excellent.'Michael Chissick, a partner with City firm Field Fisher Waterhouse, said his firm was 'delighted to win a corporate relationship instruction from a FTSE 100 company through a FirstLAW referral last month'.He said FirstLAW's concentration on expertise, experience and cost - rather than size - allowed firms 'to compete on a level playing field and on a more meritocratic basis'.FirstLAW secured funding from PricewaterhouseCoopers in February to assist with back-up services, including business planning, marketing, IT auditing and fund-raising.Jeremy Fleming