Affordable Legal Services

Carving Out a Niche For Small, Limited-Scope Legal Matters

Report by Legal Practice Intelligence - March 2010

 Michael Forster - Legal Services Innovator

Affordable Legal Services is the practice owned and run by Sydney based lawyer, Michael Forster.

Clients who are attracted to this service typically have limited funds but still want to get something concrete with those funds, such as a “lawyer’s letter” or a contract. These clients may not be able to afford a full service law firm and similarly, dealing with this type of client may not be viable for many firms.

Affordable Legal Services fills the gap between what is available from a self-service web based document generator and the service provided by an advice-giving legal practice.

Affordable Legal Services clarifies the scope of its service to prospective clients by stating on its web site that “Affordable Legal Services does not offer legal advice or legal opinions. We limit ourselves to the provision of documents, letters, contracts and factual summaries of relevant laws. We want to provide low-cost, no-frills legal services, and unfortunately, when we step into the realm of advice and opinion, our costs (and thus our rates) skyrocket. To remain low-cost lawyers, we have taken this step to keep our rates as low as possible.”  The rate at present is $125.00 per hour.

Legal Practice Intelligence (LPI) asked Michael Forster (MF) some questions about the service:

LPI: How long have you been providing this service?
 
MF: Affordable Legal Services is very new - we've been providing our services for 2 months now. However, our staff have been working in the legal services industry since 2005.
 
LPI: Do you intend to keep going with it? 
 
MF: Absolutely. We're getting great feedback and all of our clients have been very happy with the services we have provided. Our client base is growing quickly and there seems to be a demand for the unique services (and rates) we provide. If that feedback, growth and demand remains steady, then we'll be around for a long time.
 
LPI: Do you also have an ancillary full-service legal advice practice which “feeds” off the no frills service?
 
MF: At this stage we have limited ourselves to the no frills service you describe. We are doing this so that we can keep our costs as low as possible and pass those savings on to our clients.
 
LPI: Do you think that there is potential for law firms to refer work to you or do you think they see you as a threat?

MF: There is definite potential for law firms to refer work to us, particularly smaller matters. Many law firms will not, or cannot, do work on very small matters (say less than 2 hours of work) because the costs associated with opening a matter and general administration will outweigh the actual fees generated in that matter. Since our admin costs are very low, we are able to take on those smaller matters that the bigger firms won't touch.
 
I don't know whether any law firms see us as a threat - you would have to ask them about that. I will say that we have not positioned ourselves as a direct competitor to 'traditional' firms, and our service offerings are fairly unique, so they shouldn't feel too threatened by us. In fact, we welcome referrals from other firms and aim to develop a good working relationship with them.
 
LPI: Thank you

Contact details for Michael Forster are available from his web site - click here

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