Internet Online Search Marketing for Law Firms

How Do Virtual Law Firms and Solicitors Work?

OK some of you might be thinking, what the hell is a 'virtual' law firm and others will have heard of them and be here hoping to find some insight into the details.

Well in my experience working in the legal industry providing Internet marketing, you'd expect me to have come across these virtual law firms and lucky enough I have.

Let's take the more bizarre one first to get your brain warmed up.

Second Life Law Firm
Field Fisher Waterhouse in 2007 opened their very first virtual office in Second Life. If you've never heard of Second Life then think of it like Facebook but with 3D characters instead of profile pages.

Second Life is not to be sniffed at; it now has its own thriving economy in its own currency with a real exchange rate from USD.

Second Life in 2007 was estimated to have a GDP of $600m thanks to virtual businesses, property sales and so on.

Field Fisher and Waterhouse opened their Second Life office providing legal advice to other Second Life businesses that needed help understanding how the law applied in virtual worlds.

This is probably the most extreme example I've come across to date of a virtual law firm, it's virtual in every sense of the word.

Web Based Virtual Law Firms
OK so you might not see any value in me telling you about the Second Life law firm but I feel it's important that you get the perspective on how real the idea of virtual law firms are.

Now moving onto a firm that occupies some middle ground between being a physical and non-physical law firm.

Take VLP or 'Virtual Law Partners', a company that was setup only last year (2008). They are virtual in a sense that they have no bricks and mortar building on the high street that clients typically visit.

Typically these types of virtual law firms have solicitors and legal professionals working from home who are all connected together via various Internet technologies.

I don't know exactly how VLP's business model is setup so don't quote me on them specifically.

Because these firms don't have a high street presense they rely on the Internet to generate legal services enquiries for them as well.

This is where Internet marketing and particularly search engine marketing comes to the rescue. By driving targeted visitors to their website and then having those visitors submit enquiries, this almost entirely automates the firms marketing processes.

They don't have to spend time attending chamber of commerce events or networking with accountants (although this kind of networking can be done online too). They just wait for someone to conduct a search for one of the services they provide, fill in an online form or call the number onscreen, instant enquiry.

This obviously has the advantages of huge cost savings in terms of lower overheads, meaning the firm can still make good margins while charging less than the competition whose profits are diluted by large overheads.

These firms are also typically cash rich as they can also take payments upfront online.

Does It Work?
Yes it works, but bear in mind that VLP have setup specifically as a virtual law firm. This was their business model from the start, so it's no easy task to simply switch from doing things one way to doing them the other.

That's not to say however that your existing, traditional law firm can't start off marketing yourself national wide using online marketing and then start doing some virtual meetings and become a dual practice.

Why Does It Work?
Quite simply because of the increasing level of comfort people have with doing business online. Anyone with a BlackBerry is already part of this new generation of business people.

Anyone who comes along who was born after me will be one of these new generation of Internet savvy buyers of legal services. I'm 25 at time of writing, I was born in 1983 and I grew up using some of the very first personal computers available.

Even at 25 I've seen the breakneck speed at which technology has developed and I'm determined to make sure that forward thinking providers of legal services with my help, can take advantage of these opportunities instead of ignoring them and getting left behind.

posted by Chris Coney BSc at 14:14