Australia-based LegalVision has helped more than 150,000 businesses with cost-effective and efficient legal services since it was founded in 2012. Recently recognized by the Financial Times as the fastest-growing law firm in the Asia-Pacific region – LegalVision was also recently named NewLaw firm of the Year at the Australian Law Awards. In this interview with Asia Law Portal, LegalVision’s CEO, Lachlan McKnight, explains how this ground-breaking legal services business is helping to transform the way lawyers and clients work together.
How is LegalVision a uniquely new business model within legal services?
We launched LegalVision in 2012 with a mission to transform legal services. Our goal is to make the law more accessible and to be entirely client-centric. This is reflected in our unique business model in a number of ways:
1. We focus on delivering real value to clients
Rather than charge by six-minute increments and risk bill shock, we offer complete fee transparency and certainty. Clients can either pay a fixed fee, or, if they are in regular need of a lawyer. They can take advantage of our membership model, LVConnect. Here, we offer unlimited lawyer consultations, faster turnaround times, free legal templates, members-only discounts and more. Our value-driven membership model is the first of its kind in the legal industry. And our client satisfaction scores continue to exceed industry averages (measured by the Net Promoter Score).
2. We use technology to drive efficiency
The more efficient we are, the faster we can turnaround matters for clients. And the more savings we can pass on. It’s a win for both the client and LegalVision. Because it makes our lawyers’ lives easier, so they are more satisfied with their work too. We also use legal technology to drive innovation in large corporates. To help their in-house legal teams to manage high-frequency, low complexity tasks at a reduced cost.
3. We offer flexible work practices
Long before COVID-19 made working from home mandatory for many people, we offered remote working and flexible working practices to our team. It means we can attract great lawyers across the country, or who have caring commitments that don’t conform to the traditional model of late nights in the office. When the pandemic hit, it also meant we were able to continue supporting our clients during this difficult time with minimal disruption.
Since LegalVision launched seven years ago, we’ve assisted over 150,000 SMEs, startups and in-house legal teams in large corporates. We are proud to have been recently named the fastest-growing law firm in the Asia-Pacific by the Financial Times.
How integral is content marketing, online digital marketing efforts and technology — to LegalVision’s success?
Content is another area in which our model is unique. While many law firms write articles with other lawyers as the audience, our primary focus is to make the law accessible to our clients. Our content is not only free but also written in plain English, in layman’s terms. We offer a free legal content library of over 5000 articles and publications (as well as free legal documents), in which our lawyers share their knowledge. We answer questions that other law firms charge for.
As a result, our website is the most visited legal site in Australia. This means clients are receiving value from us before they have even contacted the firm. This, in turn, builds a level of trust and credibility. As a result, when they need further help, rather than searching the internet for a lawyer (which is how 76% of Australians find legal help), they contact us directly.
Our free content is a big part of our digital marketing strategy. Digital marketing and marketing automation is core to providing clients with as much value as possible. Our tech stack supports not only our team but also allows us to leverage our data to serve our clients better. For instance, if we see that a particular topic is popular (for example, trademark registration), we expand on it to provide more articles on related areas in a timely manner.
LegalVision currently operates in Australia. Do you have plans for expansion into other Asia-Pacific region legal services markets?
We are constantly evaluating overseas expansion opportunities, including trans-Tasman, Asia-Pacific and Europe. In the Asia-Pacific region, we would consider a market such as Singapore, as it is based on the English common law system. LegalVision’s business model allows us to scale in new markets and test market demand for our legal services easily.
As a growing alternative legal services platform, should law students be looking to LegalVision as a prime potential source of employment in their future career?
Because we do law differently, we attract a lot of interest from law students to pursue a career with us. They’re not just attracted to our unique model, but also to our informal dress code, free lunches and activities, and the fact our team members enjoy bringing their dogs to work.
LegalVision’s graduate pathway goes beyond just developing technical skills in specific practice areas. We train all graduates in project management, client communication and business development. Our graduates deal directly with clients, which accelerates their learning curve in problem-solving and cross-team collaboration.
A law degree opens doors to a plethora of career options. Forward-thinking law students should choose their employer based on how equipped they are for the future of law, and the training and development programs available to upskill graduates.
