Bridge the Legal Services Gap Campaign Announced by LexBlog

LexBlog is announcing today a national campaign to help bridge the legal services gap in this country.

The legal profession and the people we serve in this country face a two-sided legal crisis.

Consumers and small businesses, most of whom can afford a lawyer,  are less likely than ever to seek help from a lawyer and more likely than ever to handle legal problems themselves, or to take no action at all.

Caring and experienced lawyers who would welcome helping these people as clients do not have enough work. A 2017 Clio study found that small firm lawyers perform only 2.3 hours of legal work a day — and bill only 82 percent of that. Lawyers have become irrelevant to the majority of Americans.

The reasons for this legal services gap are varied and complex, but two prevail over all others. People do not understand what lawyers do and they distrust that lawyers will represent them well and at a reasonable cost. It is a crisis of communication and of trust.

Building trust and real communication are the keys to bridging this gap between consumers and lawyers. At LexBlog, we believe there is no more effective way to do both than through lawyers blogging in a real and authentic way. 

Trust is built through listening, empathy and conversation. Blogging has proven to be an effective way for lawyers and legal professionals, through their own voices, to build trust, connections and relationships with people in their communities.

We want to facilitate the opportunities for lawyers to connect with people – potential clients – and bridge the legal-services gap by highlighting and helping lawyers who already blog and making it easy for those who do not blog to get started.

For that reason, LexBlog is launching a national campaign to promote and build legal blogs. We are going to shine a light on the legal blogs and lawyers in cities and practice areas across the United States that serve consumers and small businesses.

We’ll both highlight the blogs and lawyers that already do this and make it easy and inexpensive to launch new blogs.

For legal professionals who already have blogs, LexBlog invites them to add their blogs to this campaign at no cost. For legal professionals who do not have blogs — and even for those who do not have websites at all — LexBlog is offering to create and host a blog for them at a low, fixed monthly rate of $49 that includes everything needed in a basic website or blog.

LexBlog’s “$49 Bridge the Gap Package” gives a legal professional everything needed to establish an Internet presence and begin blogging – and more.

• Professional, mobile-friendly blog design
• Free domain name
• Hosting.
• SEO and Google local search
• Live customer support
• Clio integration for client intake
• Publication of your posts and profile on the LexBlog network.
  Publication to the Fastcase research database
• Social media promotion
• Ongoing platform and feature upgrades

The lawyers who care enough to take the time to blog about the bread-and-butter legal problems consumers and small business people face — family issues, benefits issues, domestic abuse, bankruptcy, estate planning, workplace issues, small-business issues, housing, and the like — are connecting with people in a real way and helping to educate them about how a knowledgeable and compassionate lawyer like them can help.

Think of the impact we can make together with 20 to 25 practice areas covered in 70 to 100 cities in this country – and in all 50 states.

Our profession has tried online marketing, directories and access to legal services programs. These solutions have benefited some, yet the legal-services gap only widens.

A blog, by definition, does not help to narrow the gap. It’s the willingness of caring lawyers to go out where people are and to engage people in a real way that establishes trust – so that more people see lawyers as relevant again.

By making it simple and affordable for lawyers to blog and highlighting their contributions through the LexBlog network, we believe we can bring more lawyers and people together to address their legal needs.

For more information on joining this campaign, whether with your existing blog, or by getting started with LexBlog’s “Bridge the Gap Package,” just go here.