Lawyers question value of LIV's Find a Lawyer referral service

Law Institute of Victoria - find a lawyer referral service…

To all the lawyers out there practising in Victoria, what do you think of this service?

Contrary to what some client’s believe, we as lawyers don’t get paid for providing advice through this service. In fact, the practice owners pay a small fee to the law Institute to be on the find a lawyer referral service database.

Irrespective, I truly believe that this is a community service and it is a way to of course establish clients, especially when practitioners are starting out.

I am reticent to end this service because I know it has offered value to many people… however, I am strongly considering ending our involvement…

Why?

This is just one example -

This week our practice manager was contacted from a client in New York who demanded a meeting within 24 hours!

We obviously needed to obtain conflict details and a meeting was booked after multiple interactions…

Anyway, we offered a Teams meeting with one of our lawyers on Friday afternoon and the client was a no show…no response - Nothing!

This is pretty typical and not a one off - Not a big deal but I even once had a legal practitioner masquerading as a client to get my advice in a free consult… I was shocked!

If you don’t pay for it, you don’t value it - maybe!?

Also, there are other ways to add value and pay it forward as so to speak… our firm has started researching issues and sharing information to influence legal change but I would love to know ways others have helped the community.

What do other practitioners think of this service and other methods to provide value?

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• legal practice