LegalMatch can help small-business owners find a local attorney without paying a matching fee, but the service’s mixed customer reviews make it worth comparing your options before signing up.
What Is LegalMatch?
LegalMatch is a free online legal service that connects consumers and businesses with licensed local attorneys. The company makes money by charging attorneys a monthly fee for their ability to meet clients through the platform.
Business lawyers available on the platform focus on the following areas:
- Contract drafting and review.
- Breach of contract.
- Business entity formation (corps, LLCs, partnerships, etc.) and dissolution.
- Buying and selling a business.
- Entertainment law.
- Tax law.
- Intellectual property (patents, trademarks and copyrights).
- Litigation.
You submit an online questionnaire describing your legal matter, and LegalMatch shares it with prescreened local attorneys who have the expertise to help you. After reviewing your legal matter, attorneys who are interested in representing you will email or call you with a proposal containing information about their background, their fees and past client ratings.
How LegalMatch works
When submitting your online legal questionnaire on LegalMatch, you’ll be asked to choose the level of experience that you would like your attorney to have. If you are dealing with a fairly straightforward legal issue (e.g., drafting a standard contract) or have a tight budget, you can choose to hear proposals from newly licensed attorneys having fewer than five years of experience. They will bill at relatively lower rates. Something more complicated may require a lawyer with more than 15 years of experience, and they will bill at a higher rate.
LegalMatch will show you an instant price estimate as you’re filling out the questionnaire. When lawyers email you (or call if you prefer) with proposals, you’ll get more specific details about their fees, including rates, availability of a free initial consultation, availability of a contingent fee, accepted forms of payment and expenses you’ll be responsible for (e.g., copying costs, court costs, etc.).
How much does LegalMatch cost?
LegalMatch doesn’t charge consumers or businesses a fee for its matching service. It makes money by charging attorneys for the opportunity to meet clients through the platform.
When they respond to your online questionnaire, lawyers provide details about their fees, which vary based on several factors:
- Your business’s location.
- The level of experience of your lawyer.
- The type and complexity of your case.
- The length of your time it will take to resolve your case.
LegalMatch also has a subscription-based service called Talk to a Lawyer that can be purchased as a one-time consultation, a three-month plan or a 12-month plan. The pricing works as follows:
- One-time consultation: $249.95 (for a 30-minute consultation).
- 3-month plan: $18.95 per month subscription fee, plus $49 consultation fee.
- 12-month plan: $13.95 per month subscription fee, plus $49 consultation fee.
LegalMatch pros and cons
Pros
The service is free, providing an easy and efficient way to find an attorney.
Attorneys are prescreened.
Satisfaction guarantee up to $1,000.
Cons
Fixed-rate legal services are typically not available for court cases.
Customers report inadvertently signing up for Talk to a Lawyer, LegalMatch’s subscription service, when they intended to utilize the free version.
LegalMatch customer reviews
LegalMatch gets mixed-to-negative online reviews. Here’s how it measures up:
- Better Business Bureau: A+ rating.
- Trustpilot: 2.7 out of 5 stars.
- SmartCustomer: 1.8 out of 5 stars.
On the positive side, people like that LegalMatch saves time. Within just a few hours of submitting their case, most people received proposals from multiple attorneys and were able to hire one. Customers found LegalMatch to be much quicker than having to call multiple lawyers, make multiple appointments for consultations and Google each attorney’s background before picking one.
However, some customers only received proposals from one or two attorneys, not giving them much to choose from. Others cautioned that you still have to Google the attorneys before picking one because the reviews on LegalMatch might not be representative of other online reviews. Lastly, some customers said that attorneys who responded initially by email were later unresponsive.
LegalMatch alternatives
LegalMatch is an option for business owners who want to be matched to a local lawyer without doing the legwork themselves. For certain services, however, there may be better alternatives.
Here are some of the best alternatives to LegalMatch.
LegalZoom
Best for: Regular legal help.
LegalMatch is a good choice when you have one legal problem and expect not to need a lawyer again. But sometimes you may find that legal questions keep popping up. In that case, you may be better off using a different legal service, something that sets you up for getting legal help “on call.”
LegalZoom is a great option here. It has a business attorney plan for $39.09 per month (if you sign up for a year) that includes access to the following:
- Library of legal forms.
- Document review (up to 10-page docs).
- Unlimited 30-minute phone sessions with a lawyer on new legal topics.
- One copyright registration per month.
While customers can use LegalMatch multiple times to get help with different cases, the better value is LegalZoom if you need straightforward assistance on a regular basis.
Read NerdWallet's full LegalZoom review.
Bizee
Best for: Business formation.
If you are launching a new business, LegalMatch can be expensive. Lawyers often charge hundreds or thousands of dollars to form an LLC or corporation. Bizee is a cost-effective alternative.
Bizee’s basic plan is free to form an LLC or corporation, plus state filing fees. If you need more than articles of organization, Bizee has upgraded plans ranging from $199 to $299 that include EIN business tax number, operating agreement and other perks like phone and email support.
The catch is that, unlike LegalMatch, a lawyer isn’t representing you in the business formation process when you use Bizee, meaning you won’t have someone to advise you throughout the process. But a typical business usually doesn’t need a lawyer to file formation documents.
Read NerdWallet's full Bizee review.
Avvo
Best for: Comparing business lawyers independently.
Avvo hosts a large lawyer directory (think Google for lawyers). You can search and filter through the directory by location, practice area, years of experience and rating.
Avvo is different from LegalMatch in that it won’t identify lawyers that are a good fit for your business. It’s up to you to sort through the directory and make a choice. However, if you’re willing to invest some time searching, Avvo has more attorneys than LegalMatch.
