This August we interviewed three of our most active attorney contributors about their experiences with our website and the community we have built. The Levelset Attorney Community is the lawyer-specific branch of Levelset’s construction professional directory and Q&A forum. This forum allows contractors to publicly ask questions of attorneys, credit managers, and other construction financial and legal professionals.
Though we celebrate Levelset as a construction law resource, attorneys in our online community also have a variety of other construction-adjacent practice areas. Our lawyer contributors’ practices can range from real estate to commercial collections, even environmental law. Participation in the community and our other marketing opportunities for lawyers comes at absolutely no cost to law firms.
The Levelset Attorney Community Really is Free
One of our most enthusiastic contributors is a solo practitioner in Georgia named Richard Storrs. He has an astonishing 242 answers in the community at the time of this publication, but was admittedly skeptical of us at first.
“It’s been interesting,” he said “You know at first I was like ‘Okay this is some kind of scam, right?’ You know, ‘Free profile? Sure!’” Storrs was pleasantly surprised when he first logged in however. “They prepared this really nice looking profile for me and then I got on and started answering questions. It’s just been great, such a good experience,” he said.
The profile setup process is not only free, but it requires no work on the part of the attorney or firm. Once the attorney confirms their desire to join the network, our team builds a profile for them based on their law firm bio and or LikedIn page. After that, we send the lawyer a confirmation email to set up their Levelset login. Once the profile and login credentials are ready, the attorney answers questions in the Levelset Attorney Community at their leisure.
Participating in the Levelset Attorney Community is Easy
Ease of use was an ongoing theme throughout the interviews. Carol Sigmond in New York of Greenspoon Marder, a national full-service law firm also serving Canada, told us “Once I got the hang of it I found it pretty easy to navigate,” and encouraged her fellow attorneys to not be daunted by learning new platforms. “Just like anything else you have to play with it a little bit to learn it,” she admitted, “I don’t mind the time it takes to try to learn something new. I consider it to be a good use of my time.”
Sean Dowsing, a California-based attorney, described the whole process as “straightforward” on several occasions. Dowsing outlined the process saying “There would be a question that would pop up and you answer it and that person would reach out afterwards and it would turn into a handful of clients” for Manning & Kass, Ellrod, Ramirez, Trester LLP, a full service national law firm with offices in four different states.
Getting Leads Fast
Not only did the interviewees find our platform to be user friendly, but they also found it very easy to get client leads. I asked Sean Dowsing how long it took from him answering a Levelset customer’s question online to them calling his law firm. “It was pretty quick,” he said, “Certainly no more than a couple of days, maybe a week at most. It was usually very fast.” Storrs also found clients quite soon after he began answering questions in the community.
Carol Sigmond admitted that she was getting significant leads through Levelset, likely through organic search. “There’s no question that we’re getting clients through Levelset. I can tell you that they are coming through Levelset because they tell us that they are getting my name though Levelset. And they’re good ones!” Search success like Sigmond’s is happening because a law firm listing in the Levelset Attorney Community allows you to piggyback off of our super-optimized SEO.
Levelset comes up on the front page of Google for many construction law related search terms. You don’t even have to be a legal answers rockstar who pounds out comments daily to get hits. You just need to be consistent. “I try to jump on there maybe once every month, or once every 5 weeks or so and answer questions.” Said Dowsing who, as mentioned above, has gained several clients this way.
Lasting Relationships With Good Clients
The clients that find their attorneys in Levelset’s directory are far from small fry. Carol Sigmond told us she gained two national clients, one of which is also international via Canada, just by answering questions in our forum. Sean Dowsing stressed the importance of never underestimating an anonymous contractor question. “Don’t discriminate on the questions you answer. Sometimes there’s a tendency to really pick and choose which one you think is going to turn into a client.” he explained, “But from my experience sometimes it’s the most innocuous question and the shortest answer that’s turned into clients, as opposed to the one that you really think there’s a big legal issue or case out of. Be really open about the questions and answer as many as you can.”
Richard Storrs said he also got a couple of long term repeat clients out of it. “I helped them make a claim against the city and got them their money and then they hired me for another case. I’ve had quite a few, I’ve got one GC client north of Atlanta that has hired me for a lot of work. There’s been a lot of one-offs, too.”
For Storrs the calls kept coming in, so he kept answering questions in the Levelset Attorney Community. “I’ve received many contacts since I got involved answering questions. Lots of calls, lots of inquiries, and quite a few people have become clients and they range from a residential owner who had a dispute with a contractor to a specialty contractor that provides equipment for wastewater treatment plants.”
Building Connections in Construction
Storrs also found our online community helpful at a time when many other construction lawyer’s businesses were running dry. “It also coincided with the lockdown, in March of 2020 when the pandemic hit, I drove home and I didn’t go back to the office for a year.” he explained, “I fixed my home office and I practiced out of my house, and I just feel like Levelset was a great window on the world that both allowed me to participate in my area of expertise, and assisted in the development of my business.” There’s no doubt that the pandemic changed the landscape of the legal industry forever as more companies adopt a hybrid work structure.
Whether you are a solo practitioner out of a fully virtual law firm, or a junior associate at a firm of 600, the Levelset Attorney Community can help you grow your business and build credibility online. One of the core values of Levelset is to “Help First,” and we here at Levelset Attorney Services are so glad these three and over 1,600 other attorneys have found our platform and services helpful.
If you are an attorney with an interest in growing your construction law practice, you can set up a profile in our free directory today! If you are a contractor seeking legal help, ask a question in the Levelset Attorney Community or find an attorney in your area from our directory.