Access to justice as a leverage to grow your practice

Here is some food for thought for CBA members all across the country: Why wait for life to force your hand to make changes when you could be proactive and innovate?

Since the summer 2020, CBA Quebec members have had a head start in the world of online legal services thanks to a partnership with BidSettle, a platform on which users can settle legal disputes online and at affordable prices.

About 16 years ago, Pascale Pageau, CBA Quebec president for 2019–2020, was a trailblazer in founding Delegatus, a collective of lawyers who worked remotely before we could even imagine something like the current pandemic was in the cards for us. When COVID-19 forced practically all legal professionals to work from home, Pageau saw an opportunity to offer online legal services to CBA members.

“With the pandemic, lawyers have had to step up their training and technology game,” said Pageau in an interview for CBA’s podcast series Après la pandémie. “Once you’ve had a taste of the kind of flexibility and independence you get from working from home and being able to ramp up your productivity by moving your work online, how could you ever go back to doing things the conventional way?”

With this partnership, CBA Quebec members can add BidSettle services to their website and attract clients who are interested in simpler, clearer and more cost-effective solutions. The platform is also a way for lawyers, especially sole practitioners or those who work in small firms, to be on the leading edge of legal technology without breaking the bank. “Technology-based solutions are simply out of reach for smaller firms,” said Pageau.

BidSettle was designed as a tool to automate the settling of simple legal disputes, especially for procedures that easily lend themselves to automation, such as formal notices, and the platform continues to deliver on that front. But more and more users of this type of platform are looking to talk to someone. “You really have to build your solutions around your client, around what they actually want and not what you think they want,” explains BidSettle co-founder Alexandre Désy. And what they want is to get some guidance and have a lawyer in their back pocket. For Désy, the next big step will be to put not only a lawyer in clients’ pockets, but a whole court, too.

To date, about fifty CBA Quebec members have embraced the platform. Terrebonne’s Réjean Michaud describes the experience as “having access to the technological resources without having to invest in development and maintenance.”

The platform offers a host of advantages for legal professionals. For example, offering online services is a great way for new lawyers to build their client base. Retired lawyers who are not ready to leave the legal arena altogether can use the platform to continue working, at their own pace and according to their own schedule. Mid-career lawyers can grow their practice and earnings by offering services that promote access to justice.

Michaud appreciates the “extra income from these services, especially if you work evenings or weekends.” Marc-André Russell from Laval likes BidSettle as a “tool to concretely improve access to justice.” He also says that working with the platform as a lawyer exposes him “to all kinds of situations and clients. It really does offer concrete solutions to problems that come up again and again.”

Partnering with BidSettle is an excellent opportunity for CBA Quebec members to grow their practice while promoting access to justice.