A website that replaces lawyers ' work: LegalZoom

In the internet age, all traditional industry models have been challenged in unprecedented ways.

Recently, the United States has a Web site will be IPOs, Reuters, Forbes, business weekly and other traditional media attention.

This is a name LegalZoom, founded in 1999 by Brian Liu, Brian Lee, and Eddie Hartman, has been providing legal paperwork for small and medium-sized enterprises as well as individuals. Last year, the company has 2 million customers. In the past three years, the company's revenue has been steadily increasing, from 2009 to 103 million U.S. dollars to 2010 of 121 million U.S. dollars to 2011 of 156 million dollars, the momentum of development can not be underestimated. Recently, according to S-1 documents, the company plans to finance 120 million of dollars.

120 million bucks? Compared to the 5 billion dollars that Facebook plans to raise, it's nothing. But LegalZoom is still a Web site worth reporting because, in a way, it replaces the work of lawyers.

This explains the business model of LegalZoom, which provides legal documentation services for small and medium-sized enterprises and individuals, as described earlier, but LegalZoom offers simpler and cheaper solutions to help clients solve their problems than to direct lawyers to law firms. Users can directly log on to the LegalZoom website, by answering questions step-by-step to describe their needs and then get the legal documents they need. For example, if a user wants to register a trademark, then it can log on to the website, directly choose the registered trademark of this service, and then one after another to answer questions, and finally get a copy of the standard trademark application documents.

In contrast to traditional law firms, LegalZoom's advantages lie in:

Low price. In general, the same service legalzoom fees are 85% cheaper than a lawyer's charge;

Fast。 Users from landing legalzoom to generating their own legal documents, the process may not be more than 5 minutes;

The fee standard is clear. If a website service requires additional charges, it will display the price directly on the page, informing the user.

Of course, LegalZoom can not completely replace the role of lawyers, its business scope is mainly focused on non-litigation business, such as the application of trademarks, the creation of a company, the writing of wills and the conclusion of leasing contracts and so on. Although for law firms, the non-litigation business is relatively low-end, repetitive, but also an important and stable source of income. However, such as LegalZoom site appears, providing a cheaper price, and service quality to meet the needs of users of legal services, virtually, law firms face a new competitor. Not only that, legalzoom business expanded from non-litigation to litigation, and last year it contracted 16 law firms and 70 professional lawyers to provide legal advice to users. A warning has already been issued, "Fear, lawyers!" ”

"There are huge opportunities to transform any traditional industry with the Internet model." ”

"Fear, lawyers!" "This is Legaltime's warning to the bar." It is a Web site that provides legal documentation services for SMEs and individuals, such as applying for trademarks, creating a company, writing a will, and entering into a lease contract. Compared with traditional law firms, it is convenient and inexpensive. Sure enough, "using the Internet model to transform any traditional industry, there are huge opportunities." ”