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LegalZoom got a thumbs-up from the top court in South Carolina this week and the story is making the rounds across the trades and the blawgosphere. For example 3 Geeks and Blog reported as the news broke and Jordan Furlong has weighed in with commentary.
It’s interesting from a business of law perspective because a few weeks ago we posted a SlideShare presentation that speaks, perhaps, to the market LegalZoom serves. The presentation on the latent market for legal services states this industry is worth upwards of $45 billion.
So this week, when we stumbled upon this infographic The True Cost of an Attorney, the data on what small businesses spend on legal services – the sort of services these online legal service providers are targeting – some of the numbers jumped off the page at us.
According to the infographic, here’s what small businesses spend on legal services:
- Copyright registration: $350
- Website terms of use: $450
- Patent search: $750
- Trademark application: $1,075
- Software developer agreement: $1,150
- Software licensing agreement: $1,550
- Software startup package: $1,900
- Mechanical patent application: $3,500
- Software patent application: $6,650
Even though some of the data is from 2012, the data points look well sourced and the market has been relatively flat for the last few years. It is but one benchmark among many available today, for example:
- 5 Takeaways from the Legal Department Benchmarking Survey
- Seven Takeaways from BTI Corporate Counsel Benchmark Study
- Six Business Metrics Every Law Firm Should Measure
- 5 Brief Data Points from a Survey of GCs
- 8 Distinctive Characteristics of the Billion Dollar Legal Department
- 9 Must Read Reactions to the ELM Trends Report
- Five Quick Takes from the Survey of Law Firm Economics
Finally, for all the back and forth in the headlines on legal disruption, LegalZoom sure seems strikingly disruptive. Add to it, this infographic appears to have been originally produced by UpCounsel, an online marketplace for outsourcing legal projects at a lower cost, and we begin to see how the pressures on this side of the market are adding up.
Here’s the complete infographic:
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