Moneysupermarket.com, the price comparison website, is to start selling legal business sales leads to law firms involved in conveyancing, probate and employment later this month, the Gazette can reveal.

Consumers visiting the website will be asked if they want advice from participating firms if they have searched for information on related topics including mortgages and wills. The company intends to launch a personal injury leads service later in the year.

Moneysupermarket.com has expanded rapidly in an increasingly competitive market following a flurry of new entrants last year, including gocompare.com and tescocompare.com.

Shares in the FTSE 250 firm rocketed by 50% after it rejected a takeover bid, by an unsolicited and undisclosed source, at the end of July.

Leads businesses already exist in the legal market, but this is the first time a consumer- oriented price comparison site has entered the sector. The move could see other price comparison sites muscle in on the market and the potential creation of legal services price comparison channels.

Experts agree that the development is a major advance in the battle for the legal consumer’s pound. Professor Richard Susskind, legal technology expert and IT adviser to the Lord Chief Justice, told the Gazette that such ‘infomediaries’ would change the way consumers select lawyers.

‘This is a market worth £10bn, and the means of selection of lawyers is usually hit and miss. If 66% of people in UK use the internet, you only need a small number of these to choose legal services [in this way] to make this a serious issue,’ he said. Much depends, however, on whether law firms can be convinced of the value of such a service.

Legal business guru Professor Stephen Mayson said price comparison sites moving into the legal sector would certainly increase the ‘fierce drive to price-cost reduction and to commoditisation and consolidation’. He added: ‘This is what 21st-century, internet-driven consumerism looks like.’

Whether this means legal services could be offered like car hire or insurance quotes remains unclear, but Simon Williams at Moneysupermarket would not rule it out. For now, leads will cost a minimum of £20-25 per lead. When law firms are in competition for leads, an eBay-style auction will take place.

Achilleas Hatjiosif, business development director at bulk conveyancer Hammondsdirect, said the move is a ‘natural extension’ of a marketplace that already exists. ‘I don’t think it is a threat, it is just another option for firms to decide how they acquire new business,’ he said.

Meanwhile, Yorkshire Building Society this week launched CompareConveyancers.co.uk, a conveyancing solicitor sourcing website matching lawyers to mortgage applicants.

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