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LegalMatch Reviews (33)

I presented a case on legal match and kept getting unsolicited calls from a place called legal services which wants you to pay them to have a lawyer write a letter and advise you but NOT take your case as a law does! According to legal matches counter not one attorney reviewed my case we received not one result other than this other company trying to get you to join them, this to me appears to just be a scam but leads you to believe they can match you with a actual law firm interested in handling your case, very disappointed in a service which leads you to believe they are a attorney client based service!

Initial Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2014/03/04) */
I am sorry you have so far been unhappy with the LegalMatch service. It appears you have been a member for less than 4 months, so you can expect peaks and valleys of case activity. As you noted, you are paying a lower rate of $300/month...

because you are in a more rural area, so it is normal to expect some days to pass [redacted] any traffic. But I also note that we have sent you 229 potential clients to date; many days you received 2 or 3 clients on the same day.
It is entirely normal for some clients to not respond to your offer of services, or fail to show for appointments - this is just part of practicing law, and not limited to LegalMatch. We encourage you to work with your LegalMatch marketing manager to improve your offer messages, response time, and interactions with clients, which will definitely pay off in more client retentions. Any talk of cancellation of your 36 month contract at this time is premature.
Finally, we have no record of you emailing us on 1/22/24. However, we do show that you spoke with your marketing manager on 1/24/14. I also show that we contacted you on 2/24/14 for your monthly marketing manager call, which was not responded to by you.

Initial Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2015/10/30) */
We are sorry you have so far been unsuccessful using the LegalMatch system. We have numerous criminal defense attorneys in your exact Houston Texas market who are doing extremely well, so it's difficult to pinpoint the exact issue. ...

LegalMatch provides the forum for clients and attorneys to meet, but after that initial intro, we have no control over which specific clients engage which specific attorneys. Individual attorneys decide for themselves how much they want to charge clients for an initial consultation, how much they require in money down (a retainer), who responds to the new cases, how frequently they review and respond to new cases, and how they differentiate themselves from other attorneys in the market.
Since so many of these factors exist solely within the control of the attorney, we have to speculate to a certain extent why it works for most attorneys but isn't working for you. After reviewing your account, here are some factors we have identified:
Requiring paid initial client consultations. For the majority of your membership you have been requiring paid initial client consultations. While that may work in some markets, when clients are receiving several responses from interested attorneys, most of which offer free initial consultations, it is natural to assume clients would prefer a free initial consultation.
Slow response time to new cases. LegalMatch tracks how long it takes each member attorney to respond to new cases, and you consistently are on the slower side. Again, this may not matter in some regions, but in a busy market like Houston criminal, timing is key. Clients want to hear from interested attorneys right away since they are facing real legal consequences. If you respond to a case last, it's not likely you will engage that client.
Make sure the right person is speaking with the client. In some instances that is probably you, the attorney. But most law offices also have legal staff including administrators and paralegals. If any of these people are talking with the client, ensure they are good at convincing the client you are the best person for the job. Nothing can sabotage all your previous efforts like a staff member unable to close business.
We truly believe our service is the best, and with the right coaching, you too can be successful. We urge you to keep working with your marketing manager to find the right balance for your legal practice.
Initial Consumer Rebuttal /* (3000, 7, 2015/11/10) */
(The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.)
I did not require paid consultations for the majority of my membership. First, I offered a free consultation. Individuals would set up consultations and never show up. I spent days (days!) in my office waiting for no shows. I then starting charging a fee, with no success. I am back to no fees, and still no success.
Also, I have been slower to respond lately. But for the better part of my membership, I had a same-day (same-hour, even) response time. There cannot have been someone faster, given I responded from my phone, immediately upon receiving the notification.
I would like to receive names and numbers of these "successful" Houston criminal defense lawyers. I've never spoken to any of them. I am also now the only person interacting with any leads. And I've checked with reputable lawyers. My rates are below market. All in all, not a successful lead generating model.
Final Business Response /* (4000, 9, 2015/11/24) */
Again, it's difficult for us to explore solutions via a public Revdex.com forum. You raise several interesting points that deserve further discussion, and we remain committed to working with you to make your membership work. You are not the only person responding to prospective cases in your area, and we are contractually bound to not disclose the names of nearby successful attorneys.

I was looking for some legal advice and a lawyer by the name [redacted] helped me resolve the problem with my drivers license at no charge to me he was very helpful . well appreciated I wouldnt of got anywhere on my own , cause I tried and got the run around from the government

Here's the most important thing you need to know: Their contracts provide no "exit strategy."
I speak in rhetoric, as one can actually get out of their immensely overpriced legal referral service by either: (1) accelerating all the payments due on your 3-year contract; or (2) forcing you to find someone else to buyout/assume your contract.
It matters not whether you change jobs that would either forbid you from being a practicing attorney or taking on other work, such as taking a judicial clerkship or accepting a position as in-house counsel. It likewise doesn't matter if you make a life decision to change professions entirely.
Here's three things LegalMatch's team will do to try to make you purchase their services: (1) Show you "how much money you can make" from an extensive list of the last 90 days' worth of referrals; (2) Tell you that they "won't hold your feet to the fire" if you're not making anything from it; (3) Sell you success stories but not their counterparts.
What happens is this: Once you make one of these life-changing decisions, they point to their written contract that, as discussed, provides no exit strategy. They demand payment in full, threaten legal action, and ignore basic principles of contract law (and in so arguing, remember that they are doing so against attorneys) that an extremely dramatic change of circumstances, such as those discussed above and many others, would render the party's obligation to perform moot—or worse, impossible.
Still, one must pay or find someone else gullible enough to fall for their sales pitch willing to buy you out. The fact that this company's rating with the Revdex.com is so high is virtually untenable based on these rigid contract terms, which they *will* hold you to unless you raise heck.
In closing, remember this: Think about the typical potential client that would be looking for an attorney online, filling out detailed information about their legal problem. Sure, there's exceptions to the rule, but that leads to the very definition of exception: A successful LegalMatch attorney.

Initial Business Response /* (1000, 6, 2014/06/24) */
We have reviewed this client's case posting on our website, and her complaint made on the Revdex.com against us, and believe the client is paranoid and suffering some type of mental deficiency. Just by reading their Revdex.com complaint alone it is...

clear they are mentally troubled. "He tracked dog bowel movement and left remnants on important documents when he say in my car." "I believe he may have either a drinking problem and are in sometype of financial plight as his door to his home was coming off of its hinges." This about the attorney she then allegedly hired to represent her. This complaint is a waste of time.
Final Business Response /* (1000, 9, 2014/06/27) */
"We believe we have already adequately address your grievance, and unfortunately can offer no further assistance."
[redacted]
LegalMatch

Initial Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2014/06/27) */
I am sorry you have not had more success with LegalMatch. Part of that success comes from using the system actively and properly. I noticed you made 60 responses on 85 cases, which no doubt resulted in a lot of wasted time. Working...

with your LegalMatch marketing manager to discover how our system operates and avoiding time wasters would have helped immensely. Your marketing manager called you 5 different times in March and April 2014 to offer just such advice: none of these calls you responded to.

LegalMatch is a long term solution to your legal practice. That is why you signed a 36 month contract. It is unrealistic to expect you to master our service and get quality cases after only 2 months of using it improperly. I strongly encourage you to reconsider your position, work with your marketing manager, and give LegalMatch another try. LegalMatch remains willing and able to make your practice a success.

To address your specific concerns about how this program was sold to you, it is very true that many attorneys retire and slots open up for new attorneys. It is also a fact that we limit the number of attorneys in every area of law and geographical coverage area so there are enough viable cases for all members.

Once you became a member, you signed a 4 page contract which specified the payment terms, including an authorization for automatic monthly billing. There is nothing unethical about billing someone every month for a service they agreed to be part of, and agreed with the method of payment.
Finally, hiring an attorney to answer whether using LegalMatch is ethical in Indiana isn't a viable conclusion. Your contract specifies in section 8(B)(2) that you may terminate the contract for ethical concerns only if the "governing bar association of the attorney's primary state issues a formal written opinion, opining that it would be clearly unethical for the Attorney to participate in the LegalMatch program."
Initial Consumer Rebuttal /* (3000, 7, 2014/07/02) */
(The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.)
Their response is an insult and frankly deveptive itself. I have had multiple email exchanges with the contact assigned to me, none of which resulted in any better working with their system. They said I incorrectly used their site. That is incredible. I have had cintactbwith several people from my office which I got from their site, but like I said in my complaint every single one of them was looking for free legal advice. I don't know how I got them into my office if I was using it incorrectly. Of course none of this deals with whether their system is legal in Indiana. I also find it incredible that they choose to do business and wait until they're told to find out if its legal or not. That tells me they're worried about what the answer will be. Their response is written for readers of Revdex.com profile, not as a good faith attempt to resolve this issue. I have called my contact after reading their response, and he did answer, but as with every other attempt, he doesn't have the authority to do anything and always tells me he'll have a boss call me. That of course NEVER happens. Anyone looking at legalmatch should look up to see how many lawyers they've sued for wanting out. Lawyers are their paying customers. No legitimate company should ever have to sue that many of their own customers because they're so dissatisfied with the service they provide.
Final Business Response /* (4000, 9, 2014/07/11) */
The way you use LegalMatch effectively is you quickly weed out the low value cases BEFORE they get into your office. If the client is already in your office and then you discover they want free legal advice, then you are not using our service effectively. You are making offers on too many cases, attracting the wrong clients, and wasting a ton of time.
There are 50 states in the U.S., and only a few have ruled on the legality of matching services like LegalMatch. We publicize this information on our website at http://www.legalmatch.com/attorneys/barAssociations.html. We cannot control whether a state bar association reviews the ethics behind matching services. However, since all the states cited, plus the FTC have concluded that services like ours comply with legal ethics, and no state has ever ruled against us, we feel confident that we are on solid legal ground in places like Indiana.
All businesses go through litigation. Google, Apple, Ford, Exxon - well known companies that are appreciated by the American public... and still get sued every day. LegalMatch is a business, and one who, as you note, has an entire paying customer base of attorneys. It is not unreasonable when dealing with thousands of attorney customers for disputes to periodically arise and litigation be necessary.

Initial Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2014/04/07) */
I am sorry you were not more successful using the LegalMatch service. You did sign a 3 year contract, but in light of the circumstances we will agree to release you from any further liability. Best of luck to you and your legal...

practice.
Initial Consumer Rebuttal /* (2000, 7, 2014/04/11) */
(The consumer indicated he/she ACCEPTED the response from the business.)
This is an adequate resolution and was the desired resolution I posed in the original complaint. I believe it to be fair and professionally appropriate and I am thankful for their cooperation and for the Revdex.coms assistance.

Initial Business Response /* (1000, 9, 2015/06/26) */
Contact Name and Title: [redacted]
Contact Phone: XXX-XXX-XXXX
Contact Email: [redacted]@legalmatch.com
We called this person directly 3 days ago to discuss the matter, but our call has not been returned. In situations like this we believe...

an open discussion is the best way to find a resolution. We remain willing to talk when they are available.
Initial Consumer Rebuttal /* (3000, 11, 2015/06/29) */
(The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.)
We do not want further contact with the business that is not in writing. Please have them provide a written response. Our state bar prohibits us from contacting non-clients. Rule 7.3.
Final Business Response /* (4000, 13, 2015/07/01) */
From reviewing your file it appears you were having money problems before joining LegalMatch, which we were unable to help reverse during your 3 months using the service. We have said repeatedly on our site and the Revdex.com that LegalMatch is a long term solution. It takes time to become familiar with our service, and figure out how to best responds to prospective clients. It is unreasonable after only three months to expect to master weeding out undesirable clients from those you want to retain, posting timely and proper responses in an efficient manner, and gaining the skills to close on client engagements. Especially since it appears you decided so early on that our service wasn't going to work.
Since this time you have raised the issue of LegalMatch's ability to operate in all 50 states. This has already been addressed by the FTC in a letter we link to on our site: http://www.legalmatch.com/attorneys/barAssociations.html. All the other states that have weighed in on the issue agree that it is ethical for attorneys to participate in an online client matching service like LegalMatch.
You signed a two year deal with LegalMatch, and have only paid for two months to date. We believe that, as you are an attorney, it is reasonable to hold you to the terms of your contract. LegalMatch remains willing and able to perform their end of the bargain by offering prospective cases in your area and marketing manager support to guide you in effectively engaging clients.
Final Consumer Response /* (4200, 15, 2015/07/13) */
(The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.)
Please see our previous statements.

Legalmatch is a very reliable service especially if you are looking for fast legal assistance. I needed to find a lawyer in my area for a very complex legal problem. LegalMatch helped me get in contact with a great attorney who helped me at a reasonable rate. One of the advantages about the service is that they have pre-screened attorneys that you can get paired with instead of finding someone random out of the yellow pages or other sites. When dealing with legal issues, finding a reliable and trustworthy attorney to represent you should be at the top of your list.

I probably would never have found a decent and reliable attorney on my own without the help of their service.

In my opinion, this company is predatory and uses bait and switch tactics to sell poor quality leads for exorbitant fees. I gave it the 'ol college try and ended up wasting a great deal of time and money.

Initial Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2015/03/12) */
We are sorry you did not find success with the LegalMatch system. Opening a new business is difficult: according to studies, over 80% of new businesses fail within the first 18 months. I imagine this number is even higher if the new...

business is opened by a freshly minted attorney looking to develop a client base.
In total we sent you 276 prospective cases over your 13 month term, 126 of which you responded to (46%). Obviously there must have been some value to these cases, or why else would you have responded to almost half of them?
You claim you received "no support" from LegalMatch during your membership, but our salesforce records indicate over the past year you have received over 20 communications from LegalMatch representatives willing to discuss your account.
You also allege that LegalMatch didn't "weed out" clients who can't pay. This is a misunderstanding about how our service works. Clients presenting a case on LegalMatch spend approximately 15 minutes completing our issue-specific questionnaire online, which includes questions about their income level and occupation. This information is then shared with our member attorneys, who can then quickly determine whether a client can afford their representation. We believe our system is much more efficient than the standard 30-minute free consultation, only after which you discover the client doesn't have any money. In our system, an experienced attorney can weed out clients who can't pay in under 15 seconds.
You also state there was some confusion about exclusivity. LegalMatch has never offered exclusive client leads. In fact, the 4 page membership agreement you signed says the exact opposite - that leads are never exclusive. A salesperson may have stated that after looking at your area of law and geographic coverage area, you would be the only attorney at this time, but that can change based on our fluctuating case volumes and the growing need for attorneys to service our clients.
As for why you didn't retain any of these 126 clients, we are not sure. We have no way of verifying how many clients you actually retained, no way of controlling how soon after a case posts on our system you responded, or what type of response you are making. Furthermore, once you get the client in the door, we can't control how you interact with the client, and how knowledgeable you are in the area of law the client needs help with. It could be you didn't have enough experience, or your prices were too high, or something else.
You told us you were terminated from your job at the law firm you worked with, and are now employed in construction. We are sorry for this turn of events, but believe it is reasonable to hold you to the terms of the contract you signed, as we continue to incur expenses delivering quality clients for you to respond to and represent, per our agreement.
Initial Consumer Rebuttal /* (3000, 7, 2015/03/18) */
(The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.)
Typical Legal Match. You refuse to stand behind your product or to admit that your system is a complete failure. Rather, you want to push the blame onto the attorney and say it isn't your fault that the "vested and qualified" leads never turn into actual clients. You offer a service that is useless, but then rather than standing behind that service, once you have the young attorney on the hook you simply fall back to the position of "we don't care that you don't have clients, pay us." In business, good business people stand behind the services they provide, they don't hide behind platitudes and false promises.
In your response, you state, "Opening a new business is difficult: according to studies, over 80% of new businesses fail within the first 18 months. I imagine this number is even higher if the new business is opened by a freshly minted attorney looking to develop a client base." So you acknowledge that you already know the difficulty of starting a new business. However, you certainly don't point that out in your sales pitch. Rather, you talk about how much Legal Match will help the attorney succeed, and how you cannot contract with a firm because you want to deal with the attorney directly to allow portability. What I understand now is that you only contract with an individual attorney so that when the business fails, you can still go after the individual! Once again, refusing to stand behind your product or take any risk and rather attacking the little guy by trying to hold their feet to the fire and suing them individually. You also fail to understand that the business I was in did not fail, as the law firm is still going strong. Rather, they chose to fire me for failing to produce revenue. Something that your company promised to help me do.
You also state, "In total we sent you 276 prospective cases over your 13 month term, 126 of which you responded to (46%). Obviously there must have been some value to these cases, or why else would you have responded to almost half of them?" I responded to the leads because that is what your client representatives told me would lead to clients. But the leads were terrible, filled with people who cannot afford an attorney at all. Then your reps advised me to offer free consultations, so then I began wasting actual time with people looking for free legal advice. Your model is terrible and your leads are not in any way qualified.
You then say, "our salesforce records indicate over the past year you have received over 20 communications from LegalMatch representatives willing to discuss your account." Discussing my account is code for a legal match client representative to tell me that he cannot understand why I'm not succeeding, that everyone else using legal match is seeing success. So clearly it must be me. You are filled with false promises. Then, when I try to discuss what's happening to me regarding my termination, I get absolutely no response at all for six weeks. Instead my calls get directed to an empty voicemail box that doesn't even have a name attached to it. Only after calling every corporate number I could find in the U.S. was my phone call finally returned. And then I was met with a rude individual who refused to connect me to his superior when I was dissatisfied with his customer service.
You also say, "LegalMatch has never offered exclusive client leads. In fact, the 4 page membership agreement you signed says the exact opposite - that leads are never exclusive. A salesperson may have stated that after looking at your area of law and geographic coverage area, you would be the only attorney at this time, but that can change based on our fluctuating case volumes and the growing need for attorneys to service our clients." That is simply not true. I was told that I would be the only person in my area receiving criminal case leads. Period. Then, I see that other attorneys were responding to the criminal leads before me, so clearly you did not hold up your end of the bargain. Now you say that somewhere within the fine print of the contract you said nothing was exclusive. Funny how when you were trying to get me to sign you were all high pressure, telling me that there is only one spot available and if I didn't sign right away I would lose it. Another lie told by your sales team to grab onto the young attorney and squeeze him out of every nickle.
You then state, "As for why you didn't retain any of these 126 clients, we are not sure. We have no way of verifying how many clients you actually retained, no way of controlling how soon after a case posts on our system you responded, or what type of response you are making. Furthermore, once you get the client in the door, we can't control how you interact with the client, and how knowledgeable you are in the area of law the client needs help with. It could be you didn't have enough experience, or your prices were too high, or something else." This is the typical blame shifting that everyone in your company has been doing all along. Rather than admitting that your service is terrible, you blame the attorney that your service is supposed to be helping.
And finally, you state, "You told us you were terminated from your job at the law firm you worked with, and are now employed in construction. We are sorry for this turn of events, but believe it is reasonable to hold you to the terms of the contract you signed, as we continue to incur expenses delivering quality clients for you to respond to and represent, per our agreement." That is correct, I was forced to take a position working for a construction company. And since I don't have any money and have been forced to take a pay cut, I cannot afford your high fees for a worthless service. Rather than trying to destroy me, you should stand behind your product and void the remainder of my contract. If your system truly works, you should have no problem finding another attorney to take my place. But your unwillingness to do that only proves that you know your service is [redacted], and you cannot afford to let anyone go.
Basically, I was sold nothing but a bill of goods from your company. The "support" I was provided was usually nothing but blame shifting, telling me how everyone else was seeing success with legal match, so it must all be my fault. In the sales pitch I was told that your system would more than pay for itself, but that was clearly a lie since I spent $5,400 and received exactly ZERO in return. And now, rather than be satisfied that you scammed me out of that much, you want to hold me to a second year of a worthless contract. You really know what you're doing on that end, making an attorney contract with you directly so that if a firm fails you still have your revenue stream, while at the same time locking us into at least a 2-year deal, because you know that no one would ever stay with your service once they realize that the leads are [redacted] and the support sucks. You are nothing but scam artists. I saw on the Revdex.com website that you released another attorney after only one month on a 3 year contract, yet you are now unwilling to release me after you got $5,400. Why is that? Why are you allowing one person to terminate a contract but trying to force me to remain? And why would you not try to negotiate some sort of settlement for breach? When I asked to speak to someone about that, I was told no one ion the company had contracting authority. Clearly that is a lie, but I guess that's what I should expect from you since that's all I ever really got from this. $5,400 is money NOT well spent on legal match!
Final Business Response /* (4000, 9, 2015/03/27) */
I believe we are at an impasse ** reaching a solution via the Revdex.com. You claim our system is a complete failure - how can that be true when we have thousands of happy lawyer members and have been in business since 2001? It is impossible to guarantee success with every attorney, but we try, and some of the responsibly must rest with the individual attorney.
Final Consumer Response /* (4200, 11, 2015/03/31) */
(The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.)
There is no resolution offered. This business is a fraud and a scam, which is clearly evident by the numerous similar complaints the Revdex.com has received on its website. What I find interesting is that they were willing to terminate a 3 year contract with an attorney after only 1 month, but are unwilling to do anything to settle my issue after they received a full year of payments.

Initial Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2015/06/02) */
You signed an 18 month deal with LegalMatch, so it is understandable after only 5 months for you to not completely understand all the ins and outs of our service. Some examples: we currently do have a limited number of immigration...

attorneys in your region, and many more cases that remain unmatched. Occasionally clients don't want to be contacted by attorneys via telephone for work or personal reasons and instead limit their contact information to an email address. The "client views" you mention is not correct, as clients can be notified of an attorney's response via means other than by logging in to their account.

Practicing law is a business, and it appears you have some apprehensions about pursuing clients earnestly. We're sorry you disagree with the advice of our marketing managers (none of which have been fired btw), but the advice they convey leads to the greatest success. We can provide the venue and tools, but ultimately it is up to each attorney to secure the clients.
We are mostly confused about how you can claim our service is fraudulent when you have admittedly retained at least 5 clients, and posted responses on the majority of cases we have produced for you. We understand you believe the return on investment to date hasn't met your expectations, but that is very different then what you are alleging. Your contract reasonable negotiated and reviewed is completely legitimate, and we encourage you to continue to work with your marketing manager to aggressively seek out and secure new legal clients via LegalMatch.

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