LegalZoom set for UK launch with QualitySolicitors

QualitySolicitors teams up with US legal platform in bid to fend off Co-op

US online legal platform LegalZoom will set foot in the UK via a partnership with QualitySolicitors later this year.

Earlier this year LegalZoom delayed its stock exchange listing amid concerns that the business was overvalued in the current economic climate.

LegalZoom's prospectus lists the threat of lawsuits for unauthorised practice of law as a risk factor for the business. One such lawsuit by a local bar was known to be pending at the time of the deferral.

Observers nonetheless remained convinced that the business would press on with its plan to offer services in Britain in the near future.

In an indirect attack on the Co-op, which launched its much anticipated family law service this morning, QualitySolicitors founder Craig Holt said “Legal services offered by supermarkets and others will be faceless and entirely remote and miss the crucial local, personal element

LegalZoom offers online legal products and services which will dovetail with QualitySolicitors’ face-to-face advice.

The new joint venture will also offer subscription-based legal plans for both businesses and individuals.

LegalZoom already offers prepaid legal services to its US-based users, as does its main competitor there, RocketLawyer, which is planning a similar service in the UK by the end of the year.

Holt said the business will be working with LegalZoom to bring more firms into the network to achieve “comprehensive nationwide coverage”, with a raft of new firms set to join in the coming weeks.

Launched by Holt, a barrister, in 2010, QualitySolicitors operates as a network of medium-sized firms under the single QS brand.

The network has signed up more than 170 firms to date, which, including branches, amounts to 400 locations in the UK.

In April 2011, it set up ‘legal access points’ in several WHSmiths stores, which act as initial contact points to capture clients for participating local QS firms.

Last year Holt and co-founder Saleem Arif sold a majority stake in the business to private equity firm Palamon Capital.

The partnership with LegalZoom, he said, “brings the best of both worlds, combining the speed, convenience and value LegalZoom’s technology brings, with the comfort and confidence provided by knowing a local QualitySolicitors expert lawyer is on hand to help at any point”.