When I Grow Up, I Want To Be Acquired By An Internet Marketing Company

Many tech start ups have as an exit strategy acquisition by Google. But for legal start-ups, is being gobbled up by Internet Brands, which operates consumer websites in several different vertical markets, including legal – m be best fate they can hope for?

As Bob Ambrogi reported last week, Internet Brands added the floundering Total Attorneys to its portfolio in the legal space, which includes odd bed fellows like Nolo, Lawyers.com and the Martindale-Hubbell law directory.  Together, Internet Brands’ motley crew of legal websites amounts to 4.8 million in unique visitors searching for legal advice – and therein lies the value because Internet Brands, through various directories and other products, helps law firms market online.

What’s a little sad about all of this – is that back in the day, both Nolo and Total Attorneys were “disruptors.” Nolo empowered the DIY client long before the legal industry recognized it as a trend. Total Attorneys was an early mover in the client portal space when it acquired the Virtual Law Office  (VLO) platform, and it helped (for better or worse, depending on your view of  Bates ) clarify the ethics of paid lead generation when it helped vindicate its pay-per-click users who targeted with disciplinary actions.   On the other hand, Martindale-Hubbell – which is also part of the group – was a venerated old school legal directory. But when it tried, too late, to  make itself more accessible, it too faltered.

A recent article by Bob Goodman and Josh Harder making rounds on the web suggests that the consumer space is one of four areas in legal that’s ripe for disruption, along with legal research, process automation and e-discovery. There’s definitely lots of money to be had in the last three categories which, after all have big firms as their customers. But let’s hope for those companies targeting the consumer space have higher aspirations than winding up as a source of traffic for an Internet marketing company.

Let’s hope that the future of law looks a whole lot better than this.