Simplify the Law targets commercial firms

A new online legal service for SMEs launched this week, aiming to outflank American rivals RocketLawyer and LegalZoom by offering businesses free advice and documents.

Jonathan Brewer, chief executive of Evident Legal, the company behind Simplify the Law, said the aim was not to “push the service to end users, but to get end users to use our law firms”.

Brewer, a former City lawyer at Cameron McKenna, said: “Law firms subscribe to Simplify the Law and we profile their lawyers to our users. Under the American system, you don’t see independent firms or lawyers, because it’s about the big brands.

“They charge the business or the consumers to draft documents, but we make them available for free.

“They are trying to monetise the service for themselves and then pass the work on to lawyers, but at very much reduced rates. I don’t see how this is a sustainable model for law firms.”

Brewer said www.simplifythelaw.co.uk featured 87 commercial lawyers from 40 or 50 firms. He said there was no target for the number of firms the new service wanted to recruit but there were “around 1,500 to 2,000 firms with niche expertise in the areas we cover”.

He said Simplify the Law was aimed at micro-businesses and those with up to 50 employees.

“Businesses say to themselves: ‘Do we really need a lawyer?’ The site enables them to make a decision as to whether to do their own drafting or use a lawyer.”

Businesses using the site can transfer documents they have started to lawyers for checking or further drafting.

Brewer said work was also under way with three law firms on own-brand versions of Simplify the Law.

“Our aim is to help good commercial law firms reach prospective clients before their competitors,” he said.

“Through Simplify the Law – and the own-brand version also available to firms – Evident Legal is placing itself firmly on the side of commercial law firms in the battle to win and retain clients.”