Rocket Lawyer

Rocket Lawyer, Inc.
Private Company
Industry Legal technology, Internet
Founded August 2008 (2008-08)
Headquarters San Francisco, California[1]
Key people
 Charley Moore, Founder, Executive Chairman and CEO[2][3]
Products Attorney Services, Legal Forms, Legal Planning and Local Attorney Listings
Number of employees
 100
Website www.rocketlawyer.com

Rocket Lawyer is an online legal technology company founded by Charley Moore and based in San Francisco, California.[4] Rocket Lawyer provides individuals and small to medium-sized businesses with online legal services—including incorporation, estate plans, legal health diagnostics, and legal document review.[5] The site also provides a network of attorneys that consumers and small businesses can consult with on legal issues through its On Call service.[6]

History

Beginnings

In 1996, Moore began his career as an attorney at Venture Law Group where he participated in the early-stage representation of Yahoo! and Web TV.[7] In 2009, Moore sold his company, OnStation Corp.[4] He wanted to create an easy to use platform where legal documents can be created and shared by everyone, so he used the money from the sale, as well as early seed money to fund Rocket Lawyer.[7][8]

From the beginning, the company has targeted entrepreneurs; its initial sales model charged entrepreneurs for individual legal documents at a lower cost than standard attorney rates.[9][10] After the late-2000s recession, Rocket Lawyer switched to a monthly subscription-based model to increase sales.[9] After making this change, Rocket Lawyer increased its annual revenue from $1 million in 2008 to $5 million in 2009, and increased its monthly visitors from 150,000 to 900,000 over the same period.[9]

Growth

In January 2009, Rocket Lawyer raised $2 million from LexisNexis[11] and appointed LexisNexis executive Ralph Calistri to its board.[12] In December 2009, Dan Nye, the former CEO of LinkedIn, joined Rocket Lawyer's board of directors.[4][7] Nye was initially brought on as a board member, but after a few months was named to president and CEO.[13][14] This allowed Moore to transition to Executive Chairman.[14] Nye focused on improving Rocket Lawyer’s customer service and utilizing an analytical approach to new products, including allowing customers to create free legal documents.[14] This helped Rocket Lawyer boost new accounts from tens of thousands a month to over 100,000 a month.[14]

In 2010, Rocket Lawyer received $7 million in equity financing from Investor Growth Capital in order to expand operations.[8][15] That year, Rocket Lawyer had over 700,000 online visitors each month.[4] In the same year, 125,000 new accounts were opened each month, half of which were by small businesses.[16] In July 2011, Rocket Lawyer raised $18.5 million in a Series D round of financing from August Capital, Google Ventures and Investor Growth Capital.[17][8][18] Five months later, in December 2011, Rocket Lawyer raised an additional $10.79 million from Industry Ventures, bringing its total funding to $43 million.[17][18] In 2011, Rocket Lawyer had 70,000 users visiting the site each day, and as a result had doubled its revenue for four consecutive years, reaching $20 million in annual revenue.[17][19]

In 2012 Rocket Lawyer launched in the UK, and then in 2016 they launched in continental Europe in partnership with the French legal publisher Éditions Lefebvre Sarrut, a direct competitor of Rocket Lawyer's lead seed investor LexisNexis.[20]

Services

Online services

Rocket Lawyer provides online legal services for individuals and small to medium-sized businesses ranging from prenuptial agreements to incorporating businesses.[21] The online legal services are available to Rocket Lawyer account holders, and give access to online legal forms, help articles, and also extend to discounts with local attorneys.[22] Rocket Lawyer’s online database of legal forms was the original premise of the company, and has since expanded to include various other services.[4] They offer a subscription model where you pay an annual fee in exchange for greater access to the legal documents. Small business, personal documents are the most commonly used. The main service they offer is question-prompt fill in the blank forms that create custom legal documents quickly. Access is offered to real attorneys with complimentary consults if you have a subscription.

Attorney services

In addition to the do it yourself legal services, Rocket Lawyer offers consumers and businesses access to a network of lawyers who can review customers' legal documents, answer questions, and provide other legal services.[4][8][18] For example, if a user needs assistance in creating or editing a legal document, he or she can be connected directly to a local attorney who can provide guidance.[23][24]

In 2008, Rocket Lawyer introduced Legal Health Score, which helps individuals and businesses understand their level of legal wellness.[25] The score, which is a number between 1 and 100, is based on considerations like whether a business has incorporated or whether legal contracts are in writing.[13] Rocket Lawyer then provides both a step-by-step walk through of all the basics needed to improve a user’s legal heath and a detailed action plan that companies can follow to remedy any legal vulnerabilities.[16][26][26][22] Rocket Lawyer offers the Legal Health Score service to all types of accounts.[16]

Competitors

As of 2017, LegalZoom is Rocket Lawyer's primary Internet-based competitor in the U.S. market for legal form documents.[27] A personal finance article in USA Today stated the common perception that both LegalZoom and Rocket Lawyer allow consumers to save money on legal fees but also require some self-education and legal legwork; in other words both allow consumers to "save a few bucks by doing some of the work yourself."[28]

Rocket Lawyer's competitors also include Nolo (formerly Nolo Press),[29] the pioneering publisher of do-it-yourself legal guides[30] and the creator of Quicken WillMaker software.[31]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Company Overview / Snapshot of Rocket Lawyer Incorporated". Bloomberg Stock Research. Retrieved June 8, 2017.
  2. ↑ "Company Overview / People for Rocket Lawyer Incorporated". Bloomberg Stock Research. Retrieved June 8, 2017.
  3. ↑ "Rocket Lawyer Executive Team". rocketlawyer.com. Retrieved June 8, 2017.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Hoge, Patrick. A lawyer in your laptop. San Francisco Business Times. June 20, 2010.
  5. ↑ Bernard, Tara Siegel. Writing a Will, With a Lawyer Looking Over Your Shoulder. The New York Times. September 15, 2010.
  6. ↑ Andriotis, Annamaria. Consumers: Avoid Robosigning and Save. SmartMoney. October 26, 2010.
  7. 1 2 3 Rocket Lawyer. About: Board of Directors. Rocket Lawyer. 2012.
  8. 1 2 3 4 Takahashi, Dean. Rocket Lawyer raises $18.5M for web-based do-it-yourself legal assistance. VentureBeat. August 11, 2011.
  9. 1 2 3 Klein, Karen. To Beat the Recession, Reinvent Your Business. Bloomberg. October 23, 2009.
  10. ↑ Spors, Kelly. Automatic IRAs For Small Employers?. The Wall Street Journal. August 27, 2007.
  11. ↑ Loizos, Connie (January 7, 2009). "RocketLawyer Raises Cash from LexisNexis". PE HUB. Retrieved June 20, 2017.
  12. ↑
  13. 1 2 Carr, David. Making Your Business Legal. Forbes. October 27, 2010.
  14. 1 2 3 4 Lewis, Katherine Reynolds. Making the Decision to Replace Yourself. The New York Times. December 22, 2010.
  15. ↑ Resources for Entrepreneurs Staff. Small Businesses Avoid Getting Legal Help Because Of High Cost. Gaebler. October 19, 2010.
  16. 1 2 3 Widman, Jake. Cloud Legal Service Adds Diagnostic Tool. InformationWeek SMB. October 20, 2010.
  17. 1 2 3 Fisher, Daniel. Google Jumps Into Online-Law Business With Rocket Lawyer. Forbes. August 11, 2011.
  18. 1 2 3 Van Grove, Jennifer. Do-it-yourself legal site Rocket Lawyer raises $10.8M. VentureBeat. January 4, 2012.
  19. ↑ Rubin, Courtney. Big Money for Cheap Legal Services. Inc. Magazine. January 5, 2012.
  20. ↑
  21. ↑ Rocket Lawyer. Your Legal 'I Do' List: Rocket Lawyer Provides Legal Tips for Getting Married. Marketwire. November 23, 2010.
  22. 1 2 Bradley, Tony. Professional Legal Assistance for a Small Business Budget. PCWorld. October 19, 2010.
  23. ↑ Bentley, Lora. Rocket Lawyer Uses Cloud to Offer SMBs Affordable Legal Help. IT Business Edge. October 28, 2010.
  24. ↑ Wilson, Jeffrey L. Rocket Lawyer On Call Delivers Affordable Attorney Access. PC Mag. July 12, 2011.
  25. ↑ Titlow, John Paul. Get Affordable Legal Guidance For Your Business with Rocket Lawyer. ReadWrite Biz. October 20, 2010.
  26. 1 2 Greenstein, Howard. Start-up End-of-Year Legal To-Dos. Inc.. December 17, 2010.
  27. ↑ Lewis, Todd (April 6, 2017). "Wonder.Legal To Take On Rocket Lawyer And Legal Zoom". Nibletz. Retrieved June 19, 2017.
  28. ↑ Reeves, Jeff (April 26, 2016). "Plan ahead: 64% of Americans don't have a will". USA Today. Retrieved June 19, 2017.
  29. ↑ Morrissey, Janet (April 21, 2017). "Wills Can Avert Family Warfare, but Have Their Own Hidden Traps". The New York Times. Retrieved June 23, 2017.
  30. ↑ Goldberg, Stephanie; Poole, Gary (January 30, 2000). "Success At Nolo Press: A Berkeley upstart of the '70s becomes the guru of legal self-help". BusinessWeek. Retrieved June 24, 2017.
  31. ↑ Carrns, Ann (February 8, 2017). "Why You Should Get Around to Drawing Up a Will". The New York Times. Retrieved June 23, 2017.
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