Hundreds of lawyers sign up to online freelance marketplace


Harper: 50 clients have pre-registered

Harper: 50 clients have pre-registered

More than 600 solicitors and barristers have signed up to the online marketplace for freelance lawyers set up by LOD that goes live today.

Spoke.law, which was unveiled in May with the aim of recruiting at least 500 by launch, allows law firms and in-house teams that need short-term extra resource to hire freelancers on a day rate via a website.

Simon Harper, co-founder of LOD (formerly Lawyers on Demand) and creator of Spoke, told Legal Futures that around half of the 600 were existing LOD lawyers looking for another channel to work providers, while the rest were a mix of niche practitioners, barristers and those working with other ‘new wave’ flexible law firms. Only a quarter of those who applied were taken on

He said barristers and sole practitioners did not see themselves as LOD lawyers but were “happy to participate in the freelance law market”. He added that Spoke gave barristers direct exposure to in-house teams.

Mr Harper around 50 clients have pre-registered for the service or assisted with beta testing, including major telecoms networks, law firms, international banks and fund managers. Clients involved in the testing phase indicated that they would use Spoke to handle both general overflow work and for specific expertise.

He continued: “Spoke is about opening up the flexible legal market and from today legal teams can intelligently and easily search a wide range of lawyers and hire them on simple terms.”

Spoke manages the billing process for clients using the site, and charges a service fee. The lawyers set their own rates.





Leave a Comment

By clicking Submit you consent to Legal Futures storing your personal data and confirm you have read our Privacy Policy and section 5 of our Terms & Conditions which deals with user-generated content. All comments will be moderated before posting.

Required fields are marked *
Email address will not be published.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Blog


GEO – the impact of AI on digital marketing for law firms

GEO represents the biggest change in online business generation that I can remember. You cannot afford to stick with the same old engine optimisation techniques.


What the law can learn from fintech’s onboarding revolution

Client onboarding has always been slow. It’s not just about the paperwork and manual workflows; it’s also about those long AML checks and verifications.


Civil enforcement – progress at last with CJC report

‘When do I get my money?’ is a question that litigators acting for successful parties are used to fielding. The value of judgments is of course in the recovery made.


Loading animation