A specialist business law firm which interacts with its clients digitally has announced a move into the commercial property sector. The service is the latest to be made available via the LawBite 'digital legal services platform'.
LawBite, set up in 2014, offers four tiers of subscription services to small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs). Traditional firms are not set up to deal with this market, founder and chief executive Clive Rich told the Gazette. 'We aim to declutter law for SMEs.'
The platform, which can be downloaded as a proprietary smartphone app, enables clients to communicate with their lawyer and be kept up to date on their matter via a dashboard. 'You can ping your lawyer straight away and get a response straight away,' Rich said.
The actual legal services are provided by a Solicitors Regulation Authority-regulated virtual firm, LawBriefs. The firm says that all of its commercial property lawyers have at least 10 years experience and clients have the ability to return to the same lawyer if they choose.
Rich, a barrister who previously worked in-house at media and technology companies, said the platform has so far dealt with 46,000 inquiries from SMEs. While the firm will 'deal with anything, from cradle to exit', the most commonly sought services concern contracts. 'We do quite a lot of IP, especially trade marks, and data protection comes up a lot,' he said.
As well as direct web marketing, the platform is promoted by 'distribution partners' including insurers, software providers and 'challenger banks' who work with SMEs.
'We are enabling a democratised approach to commercial property law, providing the same quality of service as a conventional firm at up to half the cost,' Rich said. 'We're not anti law firm, just pro-SME.'
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