Innovations: Web site helps clients find attorneys

Nick Cronin, corporate staff attorney for Waukesha-based Generac Power Systems Inc., has created an easier way to find a skilled and affordable attorney.

Earlier this year, Cronin formed a company called Lawbidding.com LLC, which features a web site (www.lawbidding.com) where businesses and individuals can confidentially post their case details for attorneys to review. Attorneys make bids on cases that they want to handle.

“I have received a lot of good feedback on the set up of this system,” Cronin said. “The website makes it very easy for clients to find an attorney that fits the criteria they want and need, and also makes the cost of hiring an attorney more transparent, which will hopefully make it more affordable to hire an attorney as well.”

Generac needs to find attorneys all over the country and when he joined the company, Cronin noticed that the process to find those attorneys wasn’t very efficient, and that prices that clients pay for their lawyers are not very transparent.

The Lawbidding.com site is set up as a binary web site. One side is for the clients to submit their case information; the other side is for attorneys to set up their profiles.

“When logging on, attorneys are required to provide their name and contact information as well as information pertaining to state licensure and their state board number,” Cronin said. “They can also provide additional information about their firm and location, and can also add their websites and a photograph for additional reference by the client.”

Clients can confidentially place information about their case and attorney needs, and can receive bids from attorneys that will include either a flat fee, price on a contingent basis or an hourly rate from the attorneys, as well as access to their profile pages, Cronin said.

The web site profitability is driven completely by advertising sales, Cronin said. It is free for both parties to use.

The clients who are coming to the site are looking at and clicking through attorney ads. Cronin recently decided to bring some of the advertising in house.

“On the attorney side we will ramp up the advertising with practice management tools and techniques for law, billing software and things of that nature.”

The web site recently underwent a re-launch from its original version to provide some additional information about case breakdown by type of law and location, Cronin said.

“We have attorneys registered from all 50 states, and have had cases in every state as well since its original launch six months ago,” he said.

Cronin contracted out the development and the redesign of the website with a Madison company and hopes to eventually launch a similar web site related to certified public accountants.

“I have a business partner who is currently a CPA. He saw the site for lawyers and thought the idea would work really well for his profession as well,” Cronin said. “We are working out some of the details and hope to have that site launched in early 2010.”

Right now Cronin is focused on making these two websites the best they can be, but may develop similar web sites for other professions.

“I purchased some domain names when I first started. In the future further down the road I can see it,” Cronin said. “Right now I’m continuously looking to make improvements on this site, and add more features and grow this to something even bigger.”