Lawyers...Help More People and Build Passive Income 

This is a new concept and we agree, care and precaution should be taken to ensure a licensee is protected and that any new initiative is in the public interest. We have spoken with practice management on several occasions over the last couple years of development. We have also met the Ontario Law Society Access to Innovation team who confirmed this initiative falls within the present regulatory framework, in addition to our own ethics lawyers. Essentially, this is no different than writing or selling a book or content marketing which is already being done. Lawyers in other jurisdictions who are looking to be first movers on this platform should confirm compliance with their own regulator as there may be some jurisdictional differences.

Yes. You will get paid once a month with your sales metrics.

Our developers are practicing lawyers and although these aren't trust funds, we aim to meet the same rigorous record keeping obligations we are accustomed too. With our volume, we are better able to absorb transaction fees, credit card fees, system maintenance, cybersecurity, ongoing development costs, continued investments in infrastructure, customer service and new technologies for our members. Our goal is to encourage growth and security of this platform to best reward lawyers for their valuable contribution. 

No. We will build you a free custom eStore after vetting your professional background and upload your content for sale.

Any content being sold must be high quality, not misleading, useful and in the public interest. If you are a practitioner, lawyer, professor or maybe even a crown attorney or Judge and want to sell CPD courses as a PDF, great, simply provide them to us. If you are very creative and want to produce your own video content, awesome. If you are skilled in creative design and want to build your own custom avatar, cool, send us your finalized product. 

If you are busy, unskilled on camera or simply not creative or good with technology, we have you covered. Our design team can build your entire product from start to finish whether that's with full cinematography or creating your digital twin. You would simply have to produce your high quality content in a word document. 

Custom avatars are a new technology, we are presently working with 3 different software providers. The benefits of an avatar is that you only need to film once. You also don't need to be good on camera or have any particular skill. The reason we have chosen this technology is because it is easy to update your content when the law changes, without the cost and headache of re-filming. We are able to update the copy very quickly, almost anytime without requiring any other filming from the lawyer. This substantially reduces the initial investment cost and levels the playing field between lawyers with capital for cinematography and those just starting out. We find this also creates a better user experience where the purchaser is not stuck listening to a boring Zoom webinar or Youtube video devoid of other engagement. Integrating the avatar into a presentation helps the purchaser follow along and feel like they are there with you.

If you are looking for a high quality full body avatar, you will need proper studio lighting and audio equipment. We can shoot you in our Toronto studio, or if you live outside of the jurisdiction, send you instructions on what is needed to source someone local. We only require about 2-4 minutes of video footage to create your digital twin. However, getting it perfect can be tricky since the technology is still new and not easy to troubleshoot once the footage is produced, some instructions will be provided. A separate audio file is also required for higher quality voice cloning. If you want your avatar to look and sound like mine, professional lighting and audio equipment is needed. I used an iPhone 15 Pro for the video and shot 4K 60fps.

Alternatively, if you are more budget concious and want a very good quality half body avatar (which doesn't show hands), we can send you instructions to shoot this at home (DYI) with about a $150 in equipment (ring light + mic) you can purchase from Amazon and a high quality smartphone. You would then send us the video file with your content and we can build your product. The lighting will likely be a bit more flat (less shadow and contour) and the audio similar to what your voice sounds like when recorded on your phone. 

Yes. For now, we are aiming at keeping content duration at a minimum of around the 45 min - 1 hour mark (some reasonable exceptions). One hour of video with a good pace for the listener works out to be approximately 8,000 - 10,000 words. We are taking a data driven approach, so there may be some changes based on user feedback and sales metrics. This data will be shared with our members to best determine what the market is looking for. 

The point of this platform is to provide better value to consumers whether they are the general public or other lawyers hungry for quality CPD content. Giving great value to our customer means putting in the work, time, thought and energy to deliver it. We also must substantially exceed what information would typically be provided in a standard consultation to avoid any poor user experience. We won't accept spam content and any AI generated information is prohibited.

We understand lawyers of different skill and experience will price their products somewhat differently, this is ok. But, there will be minimum prices close to an industry standard consultation (subject to regional differences) in most categories. Minimum prices for CPD courses should also be close to market rates. The point is to give purchasers much more value and a better experience when they are seeking legal information. We want to avoid incentivizing lawyers to cut corners simply to undercut prices, give poor value or produce low quality work. We also don't want to reward anyone engaging in unethical marketing practices as described in our rules of conduct. This is not in the public interest and is potentially harmful to consumers who trust us.

There are a number of ways to get traffic to your eStore which will depend on the nature of your audience. If you are a lawyer strong on social media, you could simply link your profile to your eStore or product for your followers. If you are a business with a strong web presences, you could integrate a custom banner on landing pages, your home page or include your eStore in the navigation (what I have done). Or maybe you are a professor, crown prosecutor or Judge selling CPD courses, in this case marketing your product through professional associations would likely be most effective.

There are so many ways to get visitors to your product which will depend on your target customer, where they are, who they are and how they can connect with you. 

Unfortunately, it is virtually impossible to 100% protect any intellectual property from piracy. These are issues almost all tech giants continue to struggle with for their content producers. Even government secrets are vulnerable to attacks by nation-state actors, which is why the CIA is not connected to the internet. Your smartphone can be controlled without your knowledge by Pegasus, a spyware developed by the Israeli cyber-arms company NSO Group. So, here is what we can do to best protect our members as we continually upgrade our infrastructure:

1. Marketlegal.com uses domain-restricted access to your videos/PDFs and Ebooks, which makes the life of potential copiers more difficult.

2. With our Interactive Video Player, we offer you the option to add our logo, the user’s email, or even a user's unique ID as a watermark onto your video. Downloadable documents will have the same options.

3. We can limit duration of access to your content (say 1 year) to reduce the impacts of password sharing.

4. Your legal information gets old fast and requires updating. This makes it less appealing for pirates. 

Inspiration for this platform came after answering nearly all calls for our busy Toronto practice over the last decade. I noticed several trends in my business over time, particularly with inquires from many people (possibly over 60%) simply looking for information but NOT wanting to pay me for service...annnnnoying. As my practice grew, it became significantly harder to service these limited "quick question" information requests. These inquiries were also taxing for my business, with the personal time, administration, bookkeeping and file management costs making these customers difficult to affordably service, even if they didn't want legal advice. I also struggled to give very good value with the limited time in a first consultation because the client is actually speaking (about their problem) most of the time! I found clients didn't retain much information even when I provided the best service because they were stressed, emotional and trying to understand something totally foreign at the same (short) time. These circumstances can create a low value experience for a new customer, especially becuase many clients aren't even meeting their lawyers in person anymore!

When we are hired, clients research legal information online and ask us about it all the time! Why are they doing this? Why do I research WebMd and talk to my Doctor? People want to be more informed about their problem(s) than ever before, whether that is financial, medical or legal. They want better participation in the process with their chosen professional, which requires more understanding. Presently, the only way to help our customer be informed is with lawyer time. Yes, there is a lot of free information online, but it isn't all credible, it's not in one place, you need legal training to find, understand (and check it), it's mixed with a sales pitch, unethical marketing, incomplete and it may not be applicable to the correct jurisdiction. Also, many times people simply want content from a particular person they like or trust, even if the information is possible to find another way, and they are happy to pay for it.

I developed Law Newbie as a tool which has helped service these criminal law inquires to my business, boosting our efficiency, but consumers want and have demanded more. I soon realized many other lawyers, including family, intellectual property, employment, immigration, small claims and civil lawyers were all experiencing this same problem. To make things worse, as some lawyers became more experienced, they would tailor their business to avoid these unwanted inquiries. Experienced lawyers I talked to said their business was "no longer" getting these information based inquiries because they have moulded their practice by referrals and mature good paying clients, over time. Basically they were "fixing" the problem through avoidance. Worse, some lawyers said they just don't answer the phone because they don't want to get stuck! I have certainly felt these temptations myself, particularly as I have practiced longer. Really what is happening here is a large group of people chronically not being helped because (a) they can't afford to pay us; (b) don't understand the value we can provide through service; or (c) they just aren't ready or simply don't want service, but want to be more informed. 

What I realized is that these people are still willing to pay for high quality information from us if we can deliver it right. My hope is that this platform is the solution for both these consumers and lawyers facing this problem. I think what makes us different is that I have a small business too, that I care about and continue to operate. So, Marketlegal.com has been designed, maintained, operated and developed for seamless integration into our profession without dilution of our service. Our creative design team includes practicing and experienced legal professionals which is important if lawyers are relying on us to help build a successful product for their customer. 

Our platform and creative team have had tremendous initial success. Whether you are a new or experienced lawyer, a colleague or competitor (to my Firm), I hope to earn your trust, deliver on your expectations and help you reach more people in need.

Jordan Donich
mydefence.ca