28/11/16

The market of SMEs and freelancers within the reach of lawyers, jurists and legal interims? GOlegal makes it finally possible…

Through its unique positioning centered on digital innovation, GOlegal enables legal service providers to serve SMEs and freelancers more efficiently. GOlegal is a start-up that began operating in June 2015 and is attracting more and more customers. Donatien Cassiers and Gatien du Parc, directors of GOlegal, detail in this interview their goals and ambitions.
 

What is the rationale behind GOlegal? Why did you create it?

[DON] Because the market of legal services to SMEs is not working properly.

On the one hand, it appears that freelancers and SMEs are largely deprived of legal services adapted to their needs: a poorly transparent market, hourly (and therefore variable) billing and high fees are often pointed as main reasons.

On the other hand, these clients prove to be relatively difficult to get on-board and serve, especially because of their lack of legal culture.

[GATIEN] GOlegal's mission is to bring these two populations closer together by making legal services more accessible to clients and more efficient for providers.

What are the difficulties experienced by legal providers when interacting with SMEs or freelancers?

[GATIEN] Several obstacles are combined. Let’s consider two examples:

First, the marketing efforts required to reach this audience are often not very productive given the small number of requests from clients and their budget.

Secondly, this type of structure often has a limited knowledge in legal matters, which necessitates closer support. This also results in an additional difficulty to consolidate and structure a well-crafted file, which in turn inevitably affects total costs.

How do you manage to cope and solve these problems?

[DON] Overall, thanks to an efficient (re)distribution of tasks: we offer lawyers to focus their attention and work on legal advice - the heart of their expertise - and GOlegal takes care of the rest!

Concretely, this means that after validation of their registration – which is fast and confidential – on our platform, each lawyer, jurist or legal interim will be offered files in its specialisation(s) at no cost. Only files that have been compiled and verified by us as complete are submitted to the legal service providers for processing.

We also handle billing, reminders and other administrative matters with clients.
 

What is the feedback received from clients so far?

[GATIEN] Our customers are very satisfied, no matter their size, sector or the type of services ordered! We engage as much with freelancers as we do with international SMEs. Some customers consult us on demand (“GO!” offer) while others do so on a regular basis (“Premium” offer).

[DON] GOlegal’s role as a structuring and accessible intermediary brings added value both to providers and customers alike.
 

How do you differentiate yourself from other innovative solutions?

[GATIEN] Unlike the global trend of initiatives trying to replace legal providers, GOIegal chooses to preserve, strengthen and enhance their role, in particular by making them more efficient.

[DON] In this perspective, we pay particular attention to being compliant with applicable rules, such as the lawyers' code of ethics. As an example, the prevention of conflict of interest is part of our processes.

[GATIEN] We also leverage on innovative digital tools (“legal tech” type) available on the market or developed internally. We make those available to legal service providers to reduce their working time and increase the value of finished products to clients.
 

Are there any constraints for lawyers, jurists and legal interims related to their registration at GOlegal?

[DON] None, except for compliance with our terms and conditions. It is also important to specify that a service provider is always free to commit - or not - to a file presented to him depending, for example, on his availability.

[GATIEN] Together with legal service providers we aim to offer moderate and fixed prices, accessible to SMEs and freelancers. We are helping providers to do so without putting any pressure on their fees. The aim remains to offer affordable prices while preserving the profitability of service providers.

[DON] Lawyers who already work with us using this approach experience a clearer and less stressful way of working. Some have even become GOlegal’s partners.
 

How is it possible to become a partner of GOlegal?

[GATIEN] At GOlegal, we are always striving to introduce new products and services at fixed and pre-defined prices in cooperation with legal service providers who then become partners.

[DON] For example, a commercial lawyer having legal document templates, can contact us to verify if we can automate those and offer them at an attractive fixed price on our website. The same approach applies to services such as standard approaches (e.g. dunning letter from a lawyer). The possibilities to innovate together are endless!


To conclude, what are the main advantages that lawyers, jurists and legal interims would have when engaging with GOlegal?

[DON] I’m thinking about three main ones: a new source of income, ready-to-use files for more efficiency and finally a total flexibility in the choice of files, work places and work schedules.


How can interested readers get more information?

[GATIEN] Our new website is just “live” (https://golegal.be). There’s a lot of information available, especially in the "FAQ" section. Currently, only the French version is available, but we are working hard to implement the English and Dutch versions as soon as possible. We are confident that both versions will be online in the coming weeks.

[DON] We can also be contacted by phone (+32 2 880 82 69) to answer your questions, schedule an appointment or discuss a partnership. And of course, you can follow us on social networks! 
 

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