What do millennials look for when shopping for a lawyer? They want to know if you’ll meet with them in Starbucks. They want to know if you accept payment via Venmo or Bitcoin. They want to know a fun or quirky fact about you.
That, at least, is the premise of Modern Attorney, a new attorney directory that aims to match millennial clients with lawyers who fit their lifestyles. The site encourages attorneys to create profiles that show their personalities and in which they are transparent about their services and fees.
The directory was launched by the people behind bankruptcy site NextChapter, which was acquired in September by Fastcase. Janine Sickmeyer, NextChapter’s founder, told me that she originally created the directory to help funnel leads to the bankruptcy attorneys who use NextChapter, but that it proved so popular, she decided to open it to all practice areas.
“Six months ago, we at NextChapter started talking about how we would look for an attorney,” Sickmeyer said. “All of us agreed we aren’t going to go find an attorney in the ways people might have done so in the past. We want to find lawyers who work the way we live, who will meet us in a coffee shop or talk with us over video chat.”
Profiles show how the lawyer communicates, options for consultations, and ways in which the lawyer is tech savvy.
Lawyers’ profiles on Modern Attorney have sections that tell potential clients the different ways they will communicate — such as by email, text or remotely. They tell whether the lawyer meets by video conference, in coffee shops, or by traveling to the client.
Profiles indicate the ways in which a lawyer is tech savvy, showing when a lawyer has a secure client portal, uses “modern technology,” and communicates
