Finding the right information and the right people can be hard. I recently came across a new web service that addresses one angle of “finding people.”
Lawrex is a lawyer referral service started in April. It “provides lawyers with an efficient and effective forum to exchange referrals with other lawyers. LawRex is based on the principal that lawyers should not continually send out referrals, and receive no incoming referrals in return.”
I am intrigued by Lawrex’s point system and automated approach to create a referral market. It seems well conceived – the economist in me likes the incentives and process.
I’m struck by the increasing number of innovative approaches to help find people or information. Others include systems to find who knows whom (e.g., Visible Path), to find work product (e.g., my client’s product, RealPractice), and tagging systems to identify useful web sites (e.g., del.ico.us). Lawrex adds its own twist, applying the reach of the web and market discipline to help with lawyer referrals.
Though I think Lawrex targets smaller law practices, BigLaw may nonetheless learn from LawRex. Similar approaches might fix the distorted cross-selling incentives in some firms. Or provide a model for staffing matters. Ok, perhaps a stretch. But just minding the infrastructure won’t be enough. BigLaw CIOs need to think broadly about how developments like LawRex might filter back to their firms.
Note: I was pleasantly surprised to find a link to this blog on LawRex. That in no way influenced me to write about this site. A friend alerted me to LawRex.