When I first heard of Lawbby.com, it was basically a MySpace/Dating script hybrid. Chris Rempel, the site’s owner decided to create the site as a way for lawyers to chat, meet, and network with each other. However, the software under Lawbby’s hood was set up to facilitate dating. A member’s profile would have items like turn on’s and turn off’s, which I saw as a major obstacle for getting attorneys to join the site. Things like “do you drink?” and your religious status, though great for a personal site, just didn’t seem to translate to the legal arena.

I thought the site would be sort of a one-off: something that law school students could use to meet people with similar interests.

But I think I was mistaken.

Today I received an email from Chris Rempel, who wanted to let me know that he was already working on changing the categories for profiles. I talked on the phone with him this afternoon, and before he called, he had already replaced the religion field with Practice Area. Excellent!

So here’s what I think this site will be good for:

1. Law School Students- I’ve said it before- I’ll say it again: I am not an attorney. So, I’ve never been to law school. But I think I’m correct in thinking that law students are interested in knowing more about the areas of practice they hope to be in. Using Lawbby’s search and explore features, students can look find attorneys that are practicing in their areas of interest, read about what they do, and contact them.

2. Relentless Networkers- Attorneys and people working in the legal industy often see a direct correlation between the number of contacts they have and the amount of success they enjoy. Sweeping generalization, sure, but you can see the truth there. Lawbby is another way to expand your network of contacts.

3. Relationship builders- Blogs and social networking sites have one benefit that can’t be denied: they allow people to skip steps in forming relationships with people they normally (in the physical world) would not be able to know. If you think back to 10 or 15 years ago, you can start to see just how much the barriers of communication have come down. Could you imagine calling somone across the country (or even the world) to say “Hi. I read your book. Will you be my friend?” You might get locked up for that!

4. Reporters- Now that the site is broken down by practice areas, there will now be a central repository of “experts”, which could benefit reporters and the media immensely. Rather than searching and hunting for an expert, a reporter could simply browse through the list of members within a specific practice area, find the right person, and send an email.

which leads to

5. Attorneys who want to be interviewed by reporters- the result of #4.

Here’s the obstacles Lawbby.com faces:

1. Getting attorneys to join: Trying to get an attorney to try something new is often a difficult task. And since getting them to join is essential to the site’s success, this is a major hurdle to clear. It will take a lot of effort to build enough momentum to make signing up seem obvious.

2. Spammers: Since signing up is free, spammers will sign up to promote their sites. With any measure of success, spammers will jump on the opportunity to have free outbound links. As long as site has the right spam-blocking technology and enough administrative will, this problem can be controlled- to a point.

3. Corporate Fear Syndrome: I couldn’t think of the right name for this. It’s the idea that a firm doesn’t want their name to be associated with something seen as “amateurish” or “unprofessional.” In many cases, this fear is justified. Sometimes it is not. Either way, some firms may decide to tell their attorneys to stay away from Lawbby. And some attorneys will join anyway, which will cause a problem. It’s not an “if” it’s a “when.”

This is going to be an interesting site to watch, and, being addicted to betas and new legal marketing ideas, I’ve signed up (of course). If you decide to join, look me up on Lawbby. In fact, here’s a link to it:

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