Legal freelancers Lawyers on Demand (LOD) have launched a new application that matches lawyers with prospective clients, in a mode similar to popular online dating platforms. The app, called Spoke, promises clients BigLaw standard advice at significantly lower rates, allowing lawyers and clients to create profiles and conduct targeted searches for each other in order to create ‘matched’ pairings. ‘Spoke is about opening up the flexible legal market and from today legal teams can intelligently and easily search a wide range of lawyers and hire them on simple terms,’ said Lawyers on Demand co-founder Simon Harper of the new service.

Strong interest

Announcing the Spoke app in May, LOD originally hoped to have 500 lawyers signed up to the platform when it launched. However, the organization was inundated with applications from around 2,400 lawyers looking to capitalise on Spoke’s client pool. With an eye on maintaining the highest possible standards of quality and experience, around 75 per cent of these applicants where rejected from the platform, with just 600 making the cut for the launch. Among the top-tier crop are lawyers formerly at Slaughter & May, Herbert Smith Freehills, DLA Piper and Linklaters. On the client side, more than 50 corporates including law firms, banks and hedge funds have already signed up to use the service.