Using Facebook and Linkedin contacts, Legal Sonar aims to help attorneys drum up business and provide people looking for lawyers with reliable references.
During her time practicing law and in the years since, Diana Kander (left) has come to believe that almost no amount of advertising or other bells and whistles can trump the value of a personal recommendation when it comes time to choose an attorney.
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Kander tells the story of a friend who was simultaneously going through a divorce and filing for bankruptcy. The friend, a Ph.D., expressed concern to Kander that the lawyer he had hired was doing subpar work. As it turned out, Kander knew of the attorney. A bit surprised, she explained to her friend that the lawyer didn’t specialize in either divorce or bankruptcy.
“I was like, ‘Gosh, your’e a smart Ph.D. How did you not know that this lawyer isn’t qualified?’ ” Kander recalled in a phone interview late last month. “And I learned that a lot of even smart people are, you know, trusting of people that they don’t know very well and just assuming that J.D.s are qualified to do whatever it is that they say that they’re qualified to do.”
With her latest entrepreneurial venture, Kander is looking to eliminate the assumptions and uncertainty from that equation. On Feb. 1, Kander (CEO), co-founders Nathan Kurtz (COO) and Royce Haynes (CTO) and the rest of their eight-person team launched Legal Sonar. Based in Overland Park, Kan., Legal Sonar is an online directory that uses lawyers’ social connections to identify colleagues and potential clients. Think LinkedIn, but for lawyers.
Lawyers pay a subscription — the standard package costs $110 per month, and the premium package runs clients $299 per month — to create Legal Sonar profiles. Those profiles are searchable by people that come to Legal Sonar’s website seeking attorneys. Legal Sonar users can search for lawyers by name or area of practice. Then, utilizing the searcher’s Facebook and LinkedIn networks, Legal Sonar produces a list of suggested lawyers accompanied by information about any mutual acquaintances.
For lawyers, Legal Sonar is designed to increase visibility and leverage social networks to find new clients. For people seeking lawyers, Legal Sonar aims to provide valuable feedback about potential attorneys and peace of mind that a lawyer comes recommended by a friend or acquaintance.
That pitch seemed to resonate with attorneys, Kander said, citing the 80 percent close rate she’s seen when pitching Legal Sonar to potential clients. “I’ve been doing sales for a long time,” she said, “and I’m not used to this kind of positive feedback, which makes me feel like we have a great product.”
In a phone call today, Kander said Legal Sonar had about 100 attorneys on board at launch and has already paired some lawyers with clients in its first few days live. “We’ve had people call in, and we’ve been able to find attorneys for people, which is awesome,” she said. “It’s working.”
With $250,000 in total funding — $200,000 came from an angel round, and $50,000 is internal — Kander said Legal Sonar has enough capital to execute its plan for the Kansas City market. Kander plays it close to the vest regarding plans for expansion beyond Kansas City. But, with competition like findlaw.com and others in the space, the Legal Sonar team is putting a premium on iterating early and often.
“It’s like nobody owns and idea until they execute, you know what I mean?” Kander said. “An idea’s an idea; it’s all about how you execute. We’re just trying to execute as strongly as possible without tipping our hand too much.”
Disclosure: Legal Sonar CTO Royce Haynes is a Silicon Prairie News contributor.
Image credits: Explanatory graphic from legalsonar.com. Photo of Kander from twitter.com
