Challenge
Co-founded by famed attorney Robert Shapiro, LegalZoom.com empowers users to prepare their own legal documents online through simple questionnaires and self-help menus.

The site provides document services at drastically reduced prices, compared to attorney fees, and without the time and hassle of learning how to prepare legal documents on one’s own.  LegalZoom.com offers some of the most commonly used legal documents including Wills, Living Trusts, Living Wills, Divorces, Restraining Orders and Prenuptial Agreements, LLCs, Corporations, Trademarks and Copyrights. LegalZoom.com charged Harvey Englander and his team with launching the website and providing ongoing PR services. Englander had to immediately create interest in LegalZoom.com at a time when Internet companies faced credibility and efficacy challenges.  Despite the lack of viable online legal competitors, LegalZoom.com still had an uphill battle overcoming the tarnished image of the industry as a whole.

The demise of the dot-com economy posed both obstacles and benefits for a start-up like LegalZoom.com. On the one hand, media attention on failed dot-coms was abundant; on the other, showcasing a new, credible dot-com could attract the media looking for a positive piece on the industry.  LegalZoom.com’s PR agency considered it critical to make LegalZoom.com distinct from the failed dot-coms and position it as a credible online company.

Solution
Because of media pessimism and the growing focus away from start-ups, Englander knew the site needed to be dramatic and eye-catching in its media outreach activities. To catch the attention of the media, Englander and Shapiro disseminated a “LegalZoom Justice Court Summons”. The personalized summons, which had the look and feel of an actual court summons, ordered members of the media to appear before the LegalZoom Justice Court to preview LegalZoom.com before the site went live.

Upon getting the attention of the media, the team embarked upon a media outreach campaign – setting up interviews for Mr. Shapiro and the LegalZoom.com management team. At Internet World 2000, Englander secured one-on-one interviews with editors both on the floor of the event and at a LegalZoom.com Los Angeles Lakers Media Event.

Result
LegalZoom.com made a huge splash.  Over 250 print outlets covered the launch of LegalZoom.com including The New York Times, Business 2.0, Fortune Small Business, Fortune, Associated Press, Investor’s Business Daily, San Francisco Chronicle and Atlanta Journal Constitution. National TV coverage included CNN, Fox News Live, Fox & Friends, Bloomberg TV, NBC and PBS, as well as local network affiliates in Austin, Chicago, Dallas, Dayton, Erie, Los Angeles, Nashville, Orlando, Philadelphia, Raleigh and Toledo, among others. LegalZoom.com website hits increased 10-fold compared to pre-launch figures and site registrations more than quadrupled in the days following the launch. Since the launch, site hits and sales have held steady at 3-times the rate compared to pre-launch.