Law Society site could 'kill' competitors

WEB ADVICE: Referral site operators gear up to face threat from solicitors-online.com

The recently-launched Law Society's on-line directory has been branded a 'category killer' which could help see many of the current plethora of legal referral sites 'out of business by the new year'.

Last week saw two more sites - caniclaim.com and freelawyer.co.uk) - join a market of more than 20 referral sites offering similar services.

Such business-to-consumer orientated sites connect personal injury, divorce and other clients with law firms, which pay subscription fees to be listed.

The Society's site (www.solicitors-online.com) gives details of all of solicitors in private practice in England and Wales (see [2000] Gazette, 21 September, 22).

According to leading legal IT commentator Charles Christian, the site will 'make it hard' for others to compete.

'I can't see why firms will pay to go on sites which offer a few hundred firms - only a part of the market - when they are already listed on one that has the whole market sewn up,' he said.

Mr Christian said potential clients 'want to find a lawyer rather than information'.

Comparing the Society's site with Amazon, the most comprehensive on-line book retailer, he added: 'A lot of referral sites will probably go under, and the ones that survive will need to reinvent themselves by offering other services as well.'

But Theo Huckle, co-founder of lawjunction, a referral site launched this year, which places clients' queries before firms tendering for work, said: 'The Law Society's site doesn't do what we do - placing a query before subscribing firms, then allowing the client to select the lawyer.

Users of their site still have to contact firms themselves.

'Sites offering a service that can't be done off-line, such as ours, will prosper,' he added.Matthew Clarke, a spokesman for Full Force Marketing, which runs six referral sites including accidentcompensation.co.uk, said his sites distinguished themselves from the Society's by its consumer focus.

'We aren't blinding people with jargon.

We provide initial advice on the site, and ensure that clients' enquiries to subscribing firms are promptly followed up.'

Mr Clarke said his company receives 30 enquiries a day from its sites.

Gerald Newman, the Society's deputy director of communications, said solicitors-online was the 'gold standard' of referral sites.

The Society is looking at initial filtering of queries, but research showed that users are most interested in getting to a solicitor quickly, he said.

LINKS www.lawjunction.co.uk

Rowland Byass