New website launched to help consumers find right lawyer for them

Evolve Technologies Limited, a consultancy specialising in supporting the Legal Community, has launched a new website to enable consumers to find the right lawyer for them.

Search4legal is a website that provides guidance to consumers to better understand how to engage with Lawyers and how they can quickly and easily find a lawyer.

All SRA-regulated solicitors are on the site and the intention is to add direct access barristers, licensed conveyancers, and others. Garth Vladislavich, Evolve Director, said:

“Search4Legal is not a price comparison or solicitor review website. We are focused on increasing the transparency of information offered by law firms and so our distinguishing feature is that we offer a range of practical guidance on how to find the right lawyer and commonly encountered legal problems. Consumers landing on our site find a wealth of useful information to help them, coupled with an intuitive way to navigate to find who may be the right lawyer for them and their problem. A key point of this service is we don’t take referral or marketing fees, so there are no regulatory issues for us or the lawyers and because we list all solicitors it is seen as an unbiased resource.

That said, solicitors can subscribe to the site which will give them the opportunity to enhance their listing with more information which will aid the user to decide which lawyers are right for them, such as expertise, testimonials, prices etc. Organically, that will improve how easy it is for the customer to find their listing because the search tools will pick up that additional information. Put simply, the more information that a law firm provides to help the consumer make a decision, the easier it will be for them to be found.”

Vladislavich went on to explain where the idea for the site came from, as well as why now is the time for such a service to enter the market:

“The genesis of our idea was that more and more people are using the internet to source goods and services that they want to purchase. Typically, customers do more internet research before making a purchase – we wanted to provide an unbiased service that helps to provide transparency of the information available and allows an easy navigation. In the future, we see this service as very much taking over from traditional methods such as word of mouth or local newspaper advertising.

We know that there is a demand for this service because since launch of our site visitor numbers have increased significantly. We are regularly running successful social media campaigns that are connecting with over 1,000,000 users per month and which is generating thousands of click engagements with the site. With further campaigns planned for 2022, we want to increase this significantly.

With the increasing appearance of comparison websites and their potential for bias against small high street lawyers, we feel our site is particularly useful for smaller local law firms because they have a chance to be transparent with their customers, providing detailed profile information and clarity on pricing, added with intuitive location and specialism searches, which all enables smaller firms to raise the profile of their firm in a given locality by providing a platform that they can effectively compete on.

Our current target user base is consumers, but we will be branching out into SME and other business services as the site develops.”

Asked how the site intends to ensure information submitted by firms is accurate and truthful, Vladislavich said:

“It’s a fair point – some firms may use the platform dishonestly. All the firms we list are, however, regulated by the SRA, and we use the information from the SRA to provide a base of information that the law firms cannot change. We do have a team that check the validity of the information and we have the right to remove any information that is found to be inaccurate. The site is also linked to Trustpilot.”

This article was submitted to be published by Search4Legal. The views expressed in this article are those of the submitter and not those of Today’s Family Lawyer.