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Traditional lawyers may not like it, but venture capitalists are pouring money into one of the last industries to resist commoditization on the Web. Google Ventures today announced it is part of a group that infused $18.5 million into Rocket Lawyer, which bills itself as the "fastest growing online legal service."
Founder Charley Moore told me the firm has 70,000 users a day and has doubled revenue for four years straight to more than $10 million this year.Rocket Lawyer provides online legal forms, from wills to Delaware certificates of incorporation, that non-lawyers can fill out and store and share on the Web. For $19.95 a month, consumers can also have their documents reviewed by a real lawyer and even get legal advice at no additional cost.
The multibillion-legal industry would seem to be a natural for disintermediation, or in layman's terms, breaking up into higher-volume, lower-margin parts. Online competitor LegalZoom, about which IPO chatter swirls, claims 1 million customers and has executives from Berkshire Hathaway, Intel and Polaris Ventures on its board. Rocket Lawyer raised $7 million in June from Investor Growth Capital, put former LinkedIn Chief Executive Dan Nye in charge as president, and its directors include David Drummond, Google's top lawyer.
Moore was careful to differentiate his company from LegalZoom, which has tangled with lawyers and bar officials in several states who accuse it of practicing law without a license. (A trap that people who provide legal documents can find hard to escape.) Rocket Lawyer is also affiliated with real lawyers who can provide advice in a pinch. Federal issues are handled nationwide, while somebody with a question about, say, New York contract law would be hitched up with a lawyer licensed in that state. (NOTE: LegalZoom offers similar legal services, for a fee.)
"Rocket Lawyer gives consumers technology to do things themselves with no human intervention at all," said Moore. "When they do need help, and they do, they can consult with a lawyer."
The model is similar to those pre-paid legal services that have generated controversy over the years, but with Google technology in the background. Documents are stored, Google Docs fashion, on Rocket Lawyer's servers and can be edited and passed around before the consumer prints them out to be filed at the nearest courthouse.
Google, Moore said, is interested in anything that "changes the world in a big way." It doesn't hurt that legal documents are one of the most searched-for categories on the web. Moore declined to say what value the latest round puts on his company but you can bet more will be pushing into this market once the pioneers work out a modus vivendi with offline lawyers and their bar association enforcers, who are still resisting the Internet invasion of some of their highest-volume, most lucrative busineses.
LegalZoom has drawn attention of Silicon Valley VCs as well. It raised $66 million in its latest round, announced last month, from firms including Kleiner Perkins and Institutional Venture Partners.
