The 2012 American Bar Association eLawyering Award was recently won by Lexington-based Hargrove Madden. The award is given to just one law firm in the United States each year for innovative delivery in personal legal services. The award also attaches weight to practices that focus on moderate income individuals.
Hargrove Madden developed its online products by depending on their own experience rather than utilizing readymade or third-party provided document and script templates. Before the online service was launched, partners had spent months reviewing, refining, revising and approving the templates.
Jamie Hargrove, a founding partner of the firm told the media “Some law firms have been reluctant to establish an online practice because they thought it would taint their prestige or negatively impact their bottom line … In reality, it makes our expertise more accessible and expands our practice to a wider base of potential clients.”
The advantages to clients are many. While financially the costs of going for online options in legal services and avoiding traditional options saves at least 50% of initial costs in documentation, the savings roll in on many other fronts. Time, efforts, gas, and time trade-offs with other priority work, all enter the list of savings if legal services can be availed online without visiting law firm offices. While the entire range of services may not be offered or accessed online, at least those parts of a service or process that can be completed from home help a client significantly.
Hargrove Madden offers the advantages without restriction the options of clients, and their products page clearly mentions that a client is not limited exclusively to the online services but “Depending on the complexity of your needs, working with our traditional practice could very well be in your best interest. Once your online questionnaire has been evaluated, we will notify you if your planning needs will be better served by our traditional practice.”
Current packages offered at Hargrove Madden include Basic Wills Package, Probate Avoidance Package, A-B Planning Package and Life Insurance Trust Package with almost all packages having sub-options. The Basic Wills Package costs $695 with a special ‘A La Carte Price' of $290 in case of a ‘Last Will & Testament.' The Life Insurance Trust Package starts at $2680 with an ‘A La Carte Price' tag of $1290 for a simple ‘Life Insurance Trust.'
A look at Hargrove Madden's ‘online practice' page would convince anyone that parts of legal processes can successfully be done online at reduced costs.
