Rocket Lawyer, the “Google-backed legal services platform” recently announced that it is on track to sign up 25 firms to its panel in the UK by the end of 2012.
Amongst the media coverage there were some thought provoking observations about the standards of client care, responsiveness and new client welcome within firms.
For example: firms are assessed for their suitability to become panel members in terms of their responsiveness to client enquiries, the quality of their customer service and their complaints procedure, and whether they have online products.
How firms handled leads was especially relevant. “So many firms just drop them when they spend so much time acquiring them,” according to Rocket Lawyer’s UK vice-president, Mark Edwards.
He also estimated that the “untapped” market for legal services in the UK is around £12.5bn.
This seems a pretty aggressive estimate to me. However the variability in responding to potential new clients is absolutely the case. It reduces the ability of some firms to grow, or even maintain, revenue. Resolving it is not intrinsically difficult, but takes thinking about processes, internal communication, motivation and measurement. If you’d like to access further thinking about this, contact me at