Rocket Lawyer acquires legal Q&A site Law Pivot

Legal service in the cloud makes first acquisition, brings in new attorneys and talent

Rocket Lawyer, a fast-growing site for legal services in the cloud, announced Monday morning that it just acquired Law Pivot, the question and answer site for legal advice, in an all-stock deal. The financials were not disclosed.

Google Ventures was an investor in both companies, which created the path for both companies to make the connection. The VC firm was part of an $18 million round in Rocket Lawyer in August 2011, and earlier that year in January, Google Ventures invested in a $600,000 round that went into Law Pivot, which had launched in August 2010. All told, Law Pivot, which has seven employees, raised $1.6 million in funding.  

"We have a similar program," said Charley Moore, founder and executive chairman of Rocket Lawyer, which has raised about $38.3 million in total funding since being founded in 2008. "We previously provided Q/A in partnership with other companies, such as Pearl. Now Law Pivot brings that [service] in house."

Law Pivot, which was a semi-finalist at a Vator Splash competition in September 2010 (a month after they officially launche), currently has 2000 attorneys, who worked as independent contractors answering questions from personal bankruptcy and injuries, criminal law, starting a business and employment law.

The company charged $29 per personal questions and $49 per business question, a big drop from the startup's original idea of charging $80 per question, or $350  a month for 10 questions. Rocket Lawyer plans to re-align Law Pivot's pricing to be consistent with its own subscription offers.

The 2000 attorneys will now be brought into the Rocket Lawyer fold, which currently has some 10,000 attorneys that have created profiles on the site. 

While there are 10,000 attorneys on Rocket Lawyer, there are only 450 that have been vetted (qualifying attorneys takes about two weeks, said Moore) and are made available to provide legal advice. While Rocket Lawyer is also used for any kind of legal advice, the company makes its bread and butter from businesses who need legal services for employment contracts to papering a new round of financing. There are two million small businesses using Rocket Lawyer, creating 1-1/2 million documents a month, said Moore. More than 20,000 businesses had been incorporated on the site. 

"What we've learned is that when you're in business, you have quick questions every day," said Moore. "But if you're most of the 30 million businesses, you don't have a legal department... Rocket Lawyer offers businesses their own legal department in the cloud."

Law Pivot is the first acquisition for Rocket Lawyer, which appears to be growing great guns. Moore said the company generated north of $20 million in 2012 and is growing 100% annually. Moore sees the same this year.