Rocket Lawyer buys legal crowd-sourcing site

Legal solutions platform Rocket Lawyer, which launched in the UK last year, has bought LawPivot, a legal question-and-answer website.

The acquisition is the first step in a wider move to crowd-source some of the content on the Rocket Lawyer sites, including the UK service.

Speaking before the official UK launch in November 2012, managing director Mark Edwards said development plans included the crowd sourcing of forms and precedents.

Law Pivot will continue to operate as a separate service for the time being but will be integrated into Rocket Lawyer’s existing ‘Ask A Lawyer’ service.

The company launched in the US in 2010 to allow users – individuals and small companies – to post legal questions on a Quora-style forum, which are answered in confidence by lawyers on its 2,000 strong panel.

Lawyers can join for free, with feedback suggesting that many see it as a business development tool to reach start-ups.

Like Rocket Lawyer, it has had seed investment from Google Ventures. Other investors include Vaizra Investment, Venture 51 and Quotidian Ventures.

Rocket Lawyer founder and chief executive Charley Moore said all LawPivot staff would be joining Rocket Lawyer, contributing to the business’s mission to “democratize legal services”.

“We’re thrilled we can provide even more for free, like more free answers from licensed attorneys. We’ll also be able to make it more affordable than ever for you to get regular legal counsel for any situation,” Moore said.

The acquisition takes place as Rocket Lawyer finds itself dragged into legal proceedings initiated by competitor LegalZoom, a move Moore judged “frivolous”.

LegalZoom claims Rocket Lawyer registered internet domain names “legalzoomer.com” and “legalzoomgadget.com” in bad faith.

The Glendale-based business also says Rocket Lawyer bought keywords such as ‘LegalZoom’ and ‘LegalZoom.com’ with various search engines to “improperly divert consumers of LegalZoom to the Rocket Lawyer website by triggering sponsored links to www.rocketlawyer.com”.