Overpaid, oversexed and over here?
Thursday, August 25, 2011 at 10:58AM Are we going to see a trans-Atlantic invasion of the UK legal market in 2012?
Legal Futures broke yet another exclusive story this morning with news that LegalZoom is coming to the UK in 2012.
I don't have much to add to their commentary, but as I picked up in my recent post on the Google Ventures investment in Rocket Lawyer, the relative lack of regulation in England and Wales is a big draw for these US services.
As Eddie Hartman is quoted in the Legal Futures article:-
"The UK is today an environment where one can give more value to the consumer and soon, with alternative business structures, offer far more."
After all, why battle against Unauthorised Practice of Law class actions in Missouri (link is to the Wall Street Journal report), when you can take advantage of a regulatory regime where only a small number of areas are reserved activities and even in these areas restrictions on ownership of law firms is about to be relaxed?
Rocket Lawyer and LegalZoom look set to hit the UK market in 2012... I wonder who the next new entrant will be (and from which side of the Atlantic!).
The title of the post (and my previous You thought Tesco was bad...) are a little flippant, but actually I think these services will really shake up the market over here and I am excited to see how they pan out.
Maybe Law Pivot will be next in line. That would certainly be an interesting development as they are much more in the traditional business and startup space... and I think would attract some interest from firms who (rightly or wrongly) see the existing online providers as having a consumer focus.
