What are the Best Online Legal Services? There are hundreds of reasons you may be needing to search out a lawyer. Whether you're getting divorced, hoping to negotiate child support, looking for criminal defense, facing bankruptcy, trying to dispute a business arrangement, or protecting your intellectual property, it's good to have someone on your side. The list of specialties a lawyer may be able to help with goes on and on, making their services an integral part of our society.
Best Option
Justia is on a mission to make law and legal resources free for all. They are headquartered in Mountain View, California with global operations in Saltillo, Mexico. There is a lot that Justia does, including helping law firms grow through marketing initiatives, providing community knowledge-sharing tools, legal forums, and resources for lawyers, legal professionals, and law students.
Thorough lawyer directory
First and foremost, if you need a lawyer, Justia can connect you to one. You can search by legal issue or lawyer name in your area to find someone who will be able to help you. They have a long list of practice areas to choose from and have lists of lawyers in all 50 states with cities throughout, so it's an extensive directory. When we searched for divorce lawyers in our area, we had 182 results. Each listing showed a photo, years of experience, area of expertise, biography, professional experience, awards, professional associations, publications, social media links, and a link to their website. Clients can also review lawyers here, although there aren't very many posted so far. All in all, the lawyer directory is thorough and would be extremely helpful for any legal situation.
Ask a lawyer
An extremely helpful tool from Justia is their "Ask a Lawyer" resource. This allows you to get free answers from lawyers in your area for basic legal questions on a variety of topics like family law, criminal law, employment law, and so much more. It's possible that a question pertaining to your situation has already been asked before, so you can browse the thousands of Q&A forums for information. To do this, you'd select the practice area you're concerned with as well as your state (if relevant) to see what other users have asked and the responses that lawyers have given. Although this isn't an instant chat-type feature, it's an incredible resource and you have nothing to lose.
In-depth legal guides
The legal guides from Justia are another winning resource that everyone should take advantage of. They are sorted by topic and come with tons of information on a series of related issues. For example, their immigration law center topic has sub-topics about family immigration, business immigration, naturalization and citizenship, and deportation. Under those sub-categories you'll find an extensive list of related issues and laws that will guide you through your concerns. Plus, there are FAQs on any given topic to help you get even more specific information.
Laws and codes
Lastly, if you have questions about a specific state or federal law or code, Justia has them all organized for you to read through. You can read codes over the years and deep dive into anything and everything that has been published. You could spend a lifetime reading through it all, so it is best if you know what to look for (and maybe someone to guide you through them if you're unfamiliar with legalese).
No concerns
The "A+" rating that Justia receives from the Better Business Bureau is exactly what we hoped for and expected. They don't have as many third-party ratings as some other legal services do, but that's partly because it's a free service, so people aren't generally getting upset about losing money or not having expectations met here -they never paid for anything in the first place. Overall, Justia is considered to be reputable and provides accurate information to users, so there are no major concerns or patterns of complaint that were brought against this service.
#1 pick for finding legal services
Justia is a well-rounded resource. It has earned our highest rating among legal services since it is free and can help you connect with lawyers, get your questions answered, dive deep into legal guides and laws, and more. This site is really easy to use and we recommend turning here first when you're in need of any type of legal assistance.
Great
The idea for LegalShield was born after an Oklahoma salesman, Harland Stonecipher, was involved in a car accident and struggled to pay for the legal fees afterward, even though it was not his fault. Harland pioneered the idea of making legal representation more affordable and LegalShield was created to take away some of the worry of high hourly costs. Under the protection of LegalShield, individuals and families can live more worry-free and be connected with lawyers in their area where they live or work.
Connect with a qualified lawyer
LegalShield can help with a list of matters like estate planning, small business plans, family law, employment law, and renters' documents. To get started, you'll need to select the area of law you need help with and set up a consultation. You'll be able to speak with an experienced lawyer in your state and they can get to work assisting you with anything you need. Whether it be debt collection, drafting employee contracts, prenuptial agreements, or making a living will, you'll be in good hands.
2 paid plans
There are 2 main plans offered by LegalShield. They include:
Over 900 lawyers
There are over 900 lawyers in the LegalShield network that cover the United States and Canada 24/7. In LegalShield's Law Firm Finder, you can view the names and background information of the firms and lawyer profiles, although you don't get to pick your own lawyer since LegalShield does that for you. Most memberships process within 1 business day, so you'll quickly be connected to an attorney who can help you.
Phenomenal reviews
LegalShield has been featured by Yahoo, The Huffington Post, Law360, The Hill, and Forbes. The Better Business Bureau has awarded LegalShield an "A+" rating. The company has earned phenomenal reviews from users saying that LegalShield lawyers respond in a timely manner, they're great for giving people next steps in their legal journey, and give helpful advice that helps people win cases. Thousands of people can attest to the reliable and professional legal services that LegalShield offers.
No more reservations
We initially had our reservations with this platform since it seems like too affordable of a route to get unlimited help with legal issues and have a lawyer at the ready 24/7. Plus, not getting to select a lawyer for yourself seemed risky. However, this does not at all seem to be an issue for people and we're thrilled to have found a place that you can turn to for legal questions without paying an arm and a leg. LegalShield has earned our recommendation.
Great
Lawyers exists to help users connect to legal professionals, to make sure they get the right support in a simple and empowering way. Their search tools provide access to over 1 million attorneys in the United States. Lawyers boasts that 95% of all practicing attorneys are represented in their directory. Through this and their other free tools, Lawyers aims to be the most reliable legal service available and has been featured by The New York Times, Kiplinger, USA Today, The Washington Post, and TIME.
Impressive directory
To boost their credibility, Lawyers boasts that they have over 100k daily active users and over 1 million lawyer reviews. You can find lawyers by practice area, location, ones that are Spanish-speaking, Canadian lawyers, or new attorneys. Through a quick search, we identified that over 946 divorce lawyers were identified in our area, belonging to 151 different law firms. This is one of the longest lists of results we found through any legal service.
Useful client ratings
The top results for lawyers are often ones that are paying for special packages to be highlighted by Lawyers. To gauge whether or not a particular lawyer is going to be a good fit for you, you can quickly identify their overall rating from clients, the areas they serve, distinguishments, if they offer free consultations, and the area of law they specialize in. Most also have links to their website so you can comb through all the nitty-gritty information available about a particular attorney or firm.
Valuable legal articles
There are over 2,500 articles on legal issues that users are free to reference on the Lawyers platform. You can narrow them down by topic and find sub-categories with relevant articles. For example, when we chose the "Family" topic, we were guided to a list of topics like divorce, child custody, child support, child neglect, visitation rights, paternity, children's rights, adoptions, and more. Within these sub-categories are useful guides about major issues people face. Be sure to read through anything that might pertain to your legal case when you visit Lawyers, because it could save you time and money to learn as much as possible on your own.
Questions answered by practicing attorneys
The third primary tool on Lawyers is their "Ask a Lawyer" tab. Before asking a question of your own, you can search through ones that have already been asked. Users can sort through hundreds of legal issues and specify the state they're in to read through the applicable questions and replies. Sticking with our experimental topic of divorce, we researched articles in our state and found nearly 200. By searching the page, we could easily find discussions that related to our given legal issue. If not, we would simply type in our question at the top of the page (the more thorough the better), add details about our situation, provide our zip code, name (you can specify if you wish to remain anonymous) and email address to get your question published for a lawyer to answer. You also have the option of adding your phone number to be contacted when a lawyer answers your question.
Surprisingly few reviews
Lawyers does not have a Better Business Bureau rating and neither does their parent company, Martindale-Avvo. This website could easily be confused with a company of a similar name, Lawyer, which has many more reviews than Lawyers. Unfortunately, Lawyers has very little feedback from users, which is surprising considering how professional their website looks and the number of great resources they offer for free.
A top choice
Despite a lack of reviews, we're giving Lawyers one of our top ratings for legal services. We appreciate that they're free for people seeking a lawyer and advice. Their website is very user-friendly and it's easy to identify information that could be useful for someone's case. Being able to get specific questions answered from a lawyer and browse detailed legal articles is valuable, not to mention connecting with lawyers in your area who have a good deal of client reviews. This is a great legal service and you have nothing to lose by giving Lawyers a try.
Very Good
LegalZoom was established in 2001 as a tech company dedicated to making legal services accessible to everyone. They launched 10 online services focused on estate planning, intellectual property protection, and business formation. In 2010, LegalZoom created a network of independent attorneys so that customers could get personalized legal advice without ever having to leave home. As an example, they've created over 3.5 million estate planning documents and helped over 4 million businesses.
7 services for individuals
LegalZoom has services for businesses, individuals, and attorneys. The full list of individual resources includes making a will, trust, power of attorney, healthcare directive, divorce, residential lease, and property deed transfer. This is a somewhat limited list compared to the wide variety of legal issues that other services can help with, but sometimes niche services end up being more professional and receive greater attention to detail.
Great for small businesses
There is a lot more you can do as a small business through LegalZoom than as an individual. They have a list of services related to registering, running, and protecting your business. At the bottom of each topic is a list of FAQs and common challenges you might face through the legal process. You'll also get links to related articles, which gives you a well-rounded guide.
Service-based pricing
The cost of services from LegalZoom differs based on what you need. For example, if you need to make a last will and testament, you can pay $99 for a basic will or $249 for a premium will where an attorney reviews your documents and you can get 30-minute consultation calls throughout a year's time. Guided divorces from LegalZoom can be anywhere from $499 to $1,999+ and are done through a partner company called Divorce. A deluxe package for a residential lease is $29 and a premier package is $49. It's free to create an LLC, but you'll need to pay the state fees. Overall, LegalZoom is far cheaper than hiring your own lawyer, but it's still going to cost you something, and prices are based on services.
Free articles
Before diving into any paid service, we recommend reading through the free resources on LegalZoom. It will equip you with some knowledge before getting started that will give you confidence and possibly save you time in whatever you're pursuing. Some articles include guidance on things like starting an LLC, registering a trademark, differences between an S corp and a C corp, understanding probate lawyer fees, different types of patents, and so much more. You can search by featured topic to narrow down relevant information.
You'll get what you came for
LegalZoom is not currently rated by the Better Business Bureau, but we quickly found over 15,000 reviews from customers who gave favorable feedback about their experience here. People say that they receive quick and fast resolutions, lawyers are great to chat with (if it is part of your paid plan), everything feels easier than you'd think, and in the end people end up with professional documents. We were pleased to see that people generally walk away from LegalZoom with exactly what they came for.
Strongly recommend
You'll be happy to have LegalZoom in your back pocket for when you need easy, reliable help with a specific business or personal documents. Their experts know the laws and rules well and will make sure that you have a positive experience and come away with professional documents. This is a safe and affordable legal service that has earned a strong recommendation from us.
Very Good
FindLaw boasts that they are the #1 most visited legal information website with over 11M visitors per month. There are 1M pages of legal information and 1.2M law firms in their attorney directory. Their mission since inception in 1996 has been to make the law understandable and accessible for everyone. FindLaw contains free, up-to-date information and tools with a comprehensive lawyer directory to connect individuals to the right professionals.
No fluff
The three main things you might come to FindLaw for are to find a lawyer, learn about a legal issue, or research cases or codes. First off, if you're searching for a lawyer, you can specify if you want someone experienced in a particular legal issue, near you, or by name. There are hundreds of issues listed and you can hone in on a lawyer that also practices close by if that's important to you. There isn't a lot of fluff on lawyer profiles here. As you scroll through your choices, you're shown a photo or logo, name, past client reviews, address, years of experience, and an option to call them or visit their firm's profile.
Vet your lawyer
Firm profiles feature client reviews you can read through and more information about the lawyer or firm's practice areas, staff, fees (many offer free consultations), and office information. At the bottom of any profile are helpful tidbits for those who are unfamiliar with the legal arena. This includes things to consider when choosing a lawyer, questions to ask when vetting a lawyer for yourself, and how to check lawyer discipline prior to hiring (if you want to).
Raw, trustworthy lawyer ratings
Many of the lawyers we found had very few reviews, but some of them had bad reviews too. This doesn't reflect badly on FindLaw: it's refreshing to us to find a legal service that provides raw, unfiltered reviews on the listed professionals. It makes us trust FindLaw even more.
Wealth of information
Other services available from FindLaw include learning about legal issues you're concerned about or research cases. When we searched "divorce" here, we found over 114,000 results. This included professionals we could contact, which took up most of our results. Besides this, there were corporate counsel topics, dictionary definitions, and articles going over specifics about annulments, separation, divorce petitions, divorce timelines, information by state, filing papers, checklists, and so much more. The search function of FindLaw could use some fine-tuning, but there is a wealth of information to be discovered here.
Look up court cases
If you're interested in learning about an active, ongoing court case, you can search by party name, start and end date, docket number, and view available results. So whether you're actively involved in a case or just being a Nosy Nellie (we get it!), it's not too hard to dive into active case details here. You could also learn about federal and state codes and statutes with an easy search.
Best for clients
As we've found with quite a few legal services, it seems that the people searching out lawyers are much more satisfied than the lawyers themselves. We weren't able to find a Better Business Bureau rating for FindLaw, but we have concluded that if you're just trying to contact lawyers in your area or read free articles, it's a more reliable resource than if you're paying to have your firm listed to garner leads.
Solid legal service
We've concluded that FindLaw is a straightforward option for finding lawyers in your area and reading insightful documents that could get you started on your legal journey. We will always recommend checking the lawyer's reputation and client ratings on a few different sites before going forward with a consultation or a long-term contract with them. However, we like the free resources and unfiltered lawyer ratings on FindLaw, so this is a solid legal service.
Good
Rocket Lawyer has a mission similar to some of their competitors in the same arena - to provide affordable and simple legal services to the public. The company believes that laws are intended to protect us, but most small businesses and hard-working individuals don't have access to affordable legal services to enforce their rights with professional counsel. Since Rocket Lawyer's founding in 2008, nearly 30 million people have created accounts on this platform.
Create a variety of legal documents
There are quite a few things you can do on Rocket Lawyer, including getting help with taxes, creating the necessary documentation to start a business, eSign legal documents, or create a series of documents like eviction notices, lease agreements, living wills, quitclaim deeds, business contracts, and so much more.
Answers from lawyers
If you have questions about legal or tax questions, you can submit them in detail in the chat box provided on Rocket Lawyer's website (up to 600 characters), specify your state and what the legal issue is about, then submit it for a lawyer to review and answer within one business day. However, in order to do anything on Rocket Lawyer, you'll first need to make an account with your email address and password.
2 membership choices
With an account, you'll need to choose a paid membership. To give their services a try before committing to a billed plan, Rocket Lawyer offers a 7-day free trial. After the trial period is over, you can choose between the following two plans:
RocketLegal+ is clearly the better value, but it is a much longer-term contract than if you go month-to-month with RocketLegal. The company says you can cancel anytime by calling them.
No major concerns
The Better Business Bureau gives RocketLawyer an "A+" rating. For years, Rocket Lawyer has received high ratings from users who say that they make legal document creation easy and fast, intuitive, and professional. They have thousands of high ratings from customers, making this an unquestionably good option if you're starting a business, need to create a will, or make any other document.
Few lawyer-related services
As a legal service, RocketLawyer doesn't connect you with lawyers around you, but simply allows you to ask questions and get answers from one. Outside of this, you'd only use RocketLawyer if you need to create documents that they guarantee will hold up in court. This isn't a place to turn if you're facing urgent or large-scale legal issues, so RocketLawyer has earned a just-above-average rating for legal services.
Average
Expertise is a place you'd turn to when looking for a service professional of nearly any kind. They say they do proprietary research to identify the top service professionals in over 200 different industries across top cities in the United States. This includes home improvement, insurance, financial, lifestyle, legal, and others. To date, Expertise boasts they've analyzed over 10 million companies and have generated $200 million in revenue for the local businesses featured on their website.
Extensive legal categories
If you know the legal service category you're searching out, you can type it in alongside the area you are located. Some common searches include bail bond companies, bankruptcy lawyers, birth injury lawyers, bicycle accident lawyers, boat accident lawyers, car accident lawyers, litigation lawyers, and the list goes on. In total, there are 35 categories that might fit your area of concern, and options to find legal services in all 50 states.
Vetted professionals
So how do we know that the professionals listed are top notch? In truth, it will take some work on your part to verify, but in short, Expertise will identify an exhaustive list of local legal services using public databases and customer referrals. Then they analyze them against public records to determine the provider's reputation among algorithms that analyze their online presence. Expertise's search team validates accreditations, certifications, and licenses before screening finalists based on their primary area of expertise and their background check. Lastly, mystery shoppers call companies to gauge knowledgeability, friendliness, and professionalism. All in all, the process sounds very thorough.
Free concierge service
If you have a lot of trust in Expertise, they do have a free concierge service that could save you some time. If you call them at the number listed on their website, you can share your legal needs with their concierge team and they'll book you with the best available top-ranked lawyer. Everyone has different preferences, so this might not turn out as great as you hope, but if you don't want to do any research yourself before being matched with a legal service, this is an option.
Helpful overview
For those of you who are more picky like we are, you'll be happy to know that there is some useful information provided when you search for a lawyer to help you discover the top legal services in your area through Expertise. For comparison across different legal services, we've been searching out divorce lawyers in our area. Expertise found 105 reviewed professionals, curated 68 of them, and gave us the top 14 picks. You'll see the law firm or lawyer's logo, their name, address, and link to their website first. You can view their phone number or even send an email straight from the platform. Expertise gives their own rating of the legal service (we noticed all of them are 5/5 stars), ratings gathered from places like Google, Facebook, Avvo, Yelp, FindLaw, and other sources. Finally there is a brief overview of the provider and an attorney's name (where applicable) with their bar status and years of experience.
Free to browse and book
It's completely free to browse the list of legal professionals listed on Expertise. Their money is made by charging a commission fee to businesses listed on their platform when a customer makes a connection with them through the site. Businesses can pay fees to be featured on the platform as well.
Happy clients
Expertise has an "A+" rating from the Better Business Bureau. They have a mix of positive and negative reviews from clients and professionals listed on their site, which is interesting. It seems the people using the site to find legal or other services are totally satisfied with their experience. The main frustration comes from professionals who are paying to be listed or get leads through their platform, as they say some leads don't result in any business or their account costs more than they think it should. However, from the average consumer's perspective, we'd say that using Expertise to browse lawyers and firms is not at all a bad choice.
Just average
There is limited information about a lawyer or firm on Expertise's site, so you will need to do your due diligence by contacting them or verifying information about them from different places. You won't know anything about a particular lawyer's fees or consultation cost upfront by using Expertise, but you'll get a fast list of names with a description of their service that could help you hone in on your own top choices. We like that it's free to browse this site and there are tons of legal professionals listed, but on the whole we can only give an average rating to Expertise.
Fair
Best Lawyers is the oldest peer-review publication company in the legal arena. Based on their methodology of accepting nomination submissions, peer reviews, analyzing voter feedback, and checking a candidate's standing with their local bar association, they award recognition to lawyers, allowing them to stand out as one of the best in their practice. Recognition by Best Lawyers is a significant honor, widely regarded by clients and legal professionals alike.
Pay for full access
If you want full access to the information Best Lawyers offers about professionals in your area, you'll need to have a profile and pay a subscription fee. For $200 you can search the entire list of top talent globally and even view some non-public information, along with lawyer and firm profiles. This feels like a hefty price, but we hate to acknowledge at the same time that when you're dealing with lawyers and law firms, you'll be throwing around big dollar amounts anyway, so $200 may start to seem like pennies on the dollar.
Basic free searches
You can discover some lawyers for free from Best Lawyers, but it isn't very straightforward. You can't just search for what you want, but rather have to select your country, state, and area of practice you need a lawyer in. For us, we only found one listing for a lawyer in family law in our state, so this proved to us that not all information is shown here unless you pay for the subscription. Overall, information here feels limited.
Free but non-comprehensive legal guides
In addition to finding lawyers and their ratings, Best Lawyers has some legal guides relating to family law, immigration law, criminal law, corporate law, injury and malpractice, and employment law. However, only a few articles on each topic are listed and they likely won't pertain directly to what you're concerned about in your specific case. They do feature some top lawyers relating to the articles you're reading, and you can view their profiles.
Order magazines
Best Lawyers does not only operate online, but they also release published copies of their business magazine in over 30 regions nationwide. You can obtain physical or digital editions of their publications for $30 to $50 by contacting them directly if they aren't sold near you.
No ratings
There is no Better Business Bureau rating for Best Lawyers. We also could not find ratings on third-party sites from clients who paid for the full website access here and hired someone from it. All we found was some back-and-forth from lawyers about how reliable these lists really are and if it's worth pursuing them. Overall, we couldn't find anything that would justify spending $200 right away on Best Lawyers, so it's not a first choice for us.
Not comprehensive
We like that Best Lawyers does not require lawyers to pay for a badge or listing on their website. It makes the ratings feel much more genuine. However, since this is a list of lawyers who have been nominated and won awards from Best Lawyers, it isn't a full list of lawyers available in your state. Surely there are great lawyers who could help you that aren't listed here, so this isn't the most comprehensive guide for legal help. Best Lawyers has earned a below-average rating.
Fair
Featured by big names like CNN, NBC, Fox, Today, and The New York Times, JustAnswer is a personalized lawyer chat platform where you can ask questions and get legal advice from the comfort of your home. The idea is that you can connect with verified attorneys within minutes without having to wait for appointments. You can discuss any issue across all areas of law 24/7. JustAnswer was founded in 2003 and also offers services for people to talk to accountants, doctors, veterinarians, and more.
Chat instantly
So how does JustAnswer work? As soon as you reach their site, a chatbox will be open with a textbox for you to describe your legal issue and start chatting. When we were exploring the site, it showed that 9 lawyers were currently online and ready to chat with us. When you type out your issue in the box provided, the online assistant will match you with the most qualified attorney for your issue. From there you can engage with the attorney over text, email, or phone - whatever is most convenient for you.
Monthly fee
JustAnswer isn't necessarily a free workaround alternative to hiring an attorney. You still have to pay for this service, but if you have fairly straightforward questions and aren't needing representation in court, then this is a much cheaper way to go. It costs $5 to join the platform and then $79 monthly to chat with a lawyer and ask as many questions as you need to. You can create personalized legal documents online at no extra cost too. Customers can cancel at any time.
Semi-useful blog articles
If you have some time to burn, you could browse through JustAnswer's blog of legal articles. You can't search for specific articles, which is a major downside, but you can sort through them by tag. Some tags you can choose from include car, children, diet, exercise, home improvement, marriage, relationships, and winter. We found articles about whether or not grandparents get visitation rights, how to file a restraining order, claiming a child on taxes, what squatter's rights are, when probate is required, and so much more. There are hundreds of articles, so it wouldn't hurt to skim through and see if there is one that feels relatable to your situation.
Lots of BBB complaints
JustAnswer has a "B+" rating from the Better Business Bureau and an astounding 8,225 complaints filed against them. We noticed that a pattern of complaints revolved around people not being aware of the monthly charge for unlimited questions. But, we feel like JustAnswer makes their pricing pretty transparent, so we aren't sure how people were unaware of the costs. Some people didn't feel like their expert was knowledgeable in what they paid to get help with and were frustrated by this.
High (but questionable) third-party ratings
Opposite of what we found on the Better Business Bureau are reviews from users on other third-party sites. Of over 80,000 reviews that we were able to find, almost all of them were 5 out of 5 stars. We hope that these online reviews are genuine and trustworthy, but they are being posted every few minutes, so we hope it isn't a bot designed to pump out high ratings for the company. It's hard to know these days. However, if these reviews can be trusted, then the majority of users are satisfied and obtain useful information that they needed.
Too good to be true?
We are totally on board with the idea behind JustAnswer. Being able to chat with a legal expert 24/7 and get help with your questions instead of paying hundreds of dollars an hour to hire your own lawyer almost seems too good to be true (and maybe it is?). If you are dealing with a fairly simple legal issue, it would be a good first line of defense to go ahead and test out JustAnswer. Make sure you cancel it when you no longer need it and you shouldn't have any issues. However, compared with more thorough (and reliable) legal services in our evaluation, JustAnswer doesn't quite measure up.
Fair
Avvo (pronounced "ah voh"), was founded in Seattle as a way to make legal situations easier and help people find lawyers. They believe the more information you have at your fingertips, the better decisions you'll be able to make. Avvo provides detailed information on legal issues and lawyers so that you aren't alone in the legal arena and can find someone who will best serve you. According to Avvo, they provide ratings for 97% of US lawyers and have over 17.5 million searchable legal questions and answers on their database.
Simple searching
If you know what you need a lawyer for, you can instantly search for this along with the state you're in to see a list of who is available to you. For example, we searched for a divorce lawyer in our state and had 370 hits. From there we could narrow down by city to find someone even closer. We could also sort our results by best reviewed, most reviewed, and years licensed.
Take your pick
A list of available lawyers is shown and as you scroll through them, you can quickly identify their overall rating from client reviews (which we later found to not be entirely trustworthy), a short slogan with their phone number, their years in practice and specialty, a review highlight, and a photo. It's enough to give you a quick feel for who you might like. More information can be found if you click into their full profile or visit their website, like their educational background, the languages they speak, work experience, associations, and their activity on the Q&A board.
Free to browse
For those of us looking for a lawyer online or answers to our legal questions, it's free to browse Avvo. They make their money by selling leads to lawyers as well as features like boosted listings, targeted advertising, and more. Many of the lawyers we found offered a free consultation, but to find out their hourly cost as your hired lawyer, you'll have to discuss that with them personally.
Gather free help and advice
There are hundreds of listed practice areas on Avvo's site that you can refer to find a lawyer that specializes in your area of concern. The same goes for their legal advice forums where you can read articles related to the issues you're facing, get advice from lawyers, and find answers by topic. For reference, we chose to look into child support articles and found 102,657 questions had been asked and 3,478 legal guides written on the subject. We could easily look through the questions or search them to see if anything pertained to our situation and browse through the threads to gather as much information as we could. If this wasn't enough, we had the option to post our own question without having to pay anything. This is the best feature that Avvo offers by far.
Major red flags
It's always a bit startling to see that a company has an "F" rating from the Better Business Bureau, and unfortunately that's what we found with Avvo. This lines up with the poor reviews we found from third parties about their services as well. When people have a poor experience with the lawyer that they connected with through Avvo and try to leave a review, it never gets posted and people claim they are accused of falsely shedding negative light on their lawyer. People feel gaslighted by Avvo and can't get through to them about issues they run into by using their platform.
Has limited benefits
It's said that some attorneys people try to contact through Avvo don't even practice law anymore, so you might not be getting updated information when you use this site. If you do use Avvo, it's best to find a lawyer and then turn to other sites to verify the lawyer's rating from clients and feedback about their practice before relying on Avvo alone. Avvo doesn't get our recommendation overall, but if you use them for anything, you might as well read through their legal advice columns and Q&A since there is valuable information here that won't cost you a dime to learn about.
Subpar
Super Lawyers is a lawyer-recognition service that selects attorneys annually on a state-by-state basis through peer nominations. The company was founded in 1991 and uses a patented selection process where the top 5% of lawyers are selected to be Super Lawyers and only 2.5% to Rising Stars (under 40 years old or less than 10 years of experience). This resource is designed to help those who need an attorney find the very best ones in their area.
Selection based on 12 categories
When candidates are nominated to be Super Lawyers, they are evaluated on 12 indicators of peer recognition and professional achievement, including:
Lawyers cannot nominate themselves and are prohibited from campaigning. Through independent research, peer evaluation, and the final selection process, "Super Lawyers" are chosen and added to the directory.
Few lawyer photos
To find a Super Lawyer in your area, there is a search function where you can browse by city and legal topic to help with your issue. A list of lawyers is given with their name, law firm, location, and whether they're a Super Lawyer or Rising Star. Something we noticed is that most of the listings don't come with a photo, which is both unusual and disappointing. Seeing the face of a lawyer can sometimes help us choose who we want to pursue working with.
Not as thorough as we like
When you click into a lawyer's profile, more information is provided like how many years of experience they have, their area of practice, educational background, and a brief background description. There was no obvious way to contact them, links to their own website, or details about the cost or availability for consultations. We have definitely seen more thorough lawyer profiles through other legal services.
Q&A for some states
In addition to their published lawyers, Super Lawyers has a legal Q&A where you can search answers by legal issue, recently answered questions, answers by state, and common questions. Not all topics have been covered in every state though. For example, we had a real estate question, but found that it had only been asked in regards to the states of California, Connecticut, Michigan, Nevada, New York, Ohio, and Virginia.
Legal articles > other services
The free legal articles you can browse here are probably the most helpful resource, with hundreds of categories and common concerns covered - even things like brain injuries with links about how to prove a brain injury in a lawsuit, what is a product liability for a brain injury claim, what workers compensation is for a brain injury, and more. There's a lot of information here, so if you use Super Lawyer for anything, this would be it.
Not well respected by lawyers
There is no Better Business Bureau rating for Super Lawyers and very few ratings from anyone who has referred to the company to secure their own lawyer. From forums and other information we gathered, it seems that the rankings given by Super Lawyers aren't widely respected by lawyers themselves, so we don't believe them to be exceptionally helpful.
Won't prove very useful
In the end, Super Lawyers isn't a legal service that we feel will prove helpful to most people looking for help. Other platforms on our list have far better services and better websites with more information. Super Lawyers won't get you very far, so we recommend skipping this company and going with a higher-rated legal service on our list.
Subpar
Founded in 2008, Thumbtack connects professionals with local jobs that will help grow their business. For example, if you need someone to drywall a room in your house, you could jump onto this website and find someone nearby who is a fit for the job. Their online directory allows you to search for, rate, and hire local professionals who could work on a variety of personal projects, including providing legal services.
Find lawyers in your zip code
To find an available attorney or firm near you through Thumbtack, you simply provide your zip code and see what comes up. A broad search for a legal professional will result in a long list of pros, so you can filter them by the type of attorney (divorce, bankruptcy, immigration, criminal defense, personal injury). You can scroll through their photos, overall rating, specialty, and see the amount of times they've been hired through Thumbtack's legal service.
Comprehensive profiles
Once you've found a few attorneys or firms you want to learn more about, you can visit their Thumbtack profile to read an introduction, learn about how many people they employ, read their reviews, see their credentials, and read FAQs. From their profile, you can message them directly or request a call. It is during this interaction that you'll learn what their consultation procedure is and how much they charge hourly afterward.
Free price estimates
Thumbtack provides free estimates on pricing in your area just so you get a general idea of what your legal services could cost before you speak with a lawyer. Some examples of related cost information include domestic violence lawyer costs, criminal defense attorney costs, real estate lawyer fees, legal document preparation costs, bankruptcy attorney costs, and so on. Based on your zip code, you'll be shown a price range for Thumbtack professionals. For example, we were shown that real estate attorneys on Thumbtack cost anywhere between $502 and $1,552 around our zip code.
Do your homework
Once you've landed on a legal professional that seems to suit your needs, you hire them and it's mostly out of Thumbtack's hands. It's important to make sure that the professional you hire is fully licensed and has genuine reviews before moving forward. We recommend looking them up on a few different sites before going under contract with them.
Risky choice
The Better Business Bureau rating for Thumbtack is a "A-" and they have mixed third-party reviews from customers and contractors. Negative reviews are mostly a result of lousy contractors who don't perform the services they said they would. Negative reviews from contractors are usually due to complaints that Thumbtack charges them for poor leads and they feel like they've wasted money on a profile here. We read the word "scam" one too many times from people describing their experience with Thumbtack.
Good for some things, but not legal
If you really do your due diligence in researching an attorney to work with that you find through Thumbtack, chances are you will have a pretty good experience. However, not all lawyers are listed here unless they've signed up and are paying for leads. We specifically saw that lawyers were warning other lawyers not to sign up for this platform because they'll just find clients looking for cheap legal advice, so we aren't sure that the attorneys or lawyers here are a good representation of the experts in your area. Thumbtack is a good resource for some things, but not a recommended choice as a legal service.
Continued from above...
There are hundreds of reasons you may be needing to search out a lawyer. Whether you're getting divorced, hoping to negotiate child support, looking for criminal defense, facing bankruptcy, trying to dispute a business arrangement, or protecting your intellectual property, it's good to have someone on your side. The list of specialties a lawyer may be able to help with goes on and on, making their services an integral part of our society.
Since there are thousands of lawyers practicing in every state, you'll require some assistance in narrowing down the one that will give you the highest odds of success in your case. You'll want to find someone who has a high win rate in court, is well-liked by clients, practices near you, charges a reasonable amount, and has a reputable background. It's an exhaustive list! There are plenty of online resources to help you find the right legal services, but where do you begin?
Some online guides will provide you with easily searchable lists of lawyers in your area who focus on your area of concern. You can read their bios, see reviews from clients, jump to their website, and see how much they charge for a consultation. We recommend utilizing a couple of different online legal services to verify the legitimacy and reliability of a particular lawyer on each platform. This protects you from fake reviews or inconsistent information about an attorney.
Once you've identified a lawyer you're interested in hiring, you can book a consultation to discuss your situation and learn how they would proceed from that point. These consultations are usually around 30 minutes long and are often free to you.
Some of these referral sites cost nothing to use, while others charge a fee for full access to their database of information. We've thoroughly explored the top legal services to identify the ones that are worth paying for (or not). You have a lot to consider, but with this comprehensive list of legal services, you shouldn't have to spend too much time finding a lawyer or firm that will benefit you.
Take these criteria into consideration as you're evaluating which legal services are best for your case:
The experts at Top Consumer Reviews have researched the best legal services available to you. Our hope is that you'll find a professional, reliable representative that will successfully guide you through your legal situation and leave you satisfied with the results.
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