THE LARGEST COLLECTION OF LEGAL JOBS ON EARTH
LawCrossing Legal Daily News Feature
Retailing Legal Services: The New Retail Lawyer by Surajit Sen Sharma
Melva Rozier is making the headlines by setting up the nation’s, possibly, first retail law firm – and it’s not about retail law, but about retailing legal services from a booth in a shopping mall at the MRP of $25 per consultation. The novel move has attracted both criticism and appreciation, but there’s no doubt that it has garnered huge attention, and most of it positive. In one stroke it also focuses on some burning issues – high lawyer’s fees, quick accessibility, deconstruction of legal services into retail packages, and of course, capitalization of the fleeting ‘urge to purchase’ on the moment.
03/14/12
Security concerns are integral to any human decisionmaking and Rozier’s retail law booth caters to that wide
While temperamental and
and unsatisfied demand in shoppers. Now, if you were
purchase-urges of the moment
on a splurging spree buying something worth more
have been well known to the retailing and advertising
than $10000 – isn’t it prudent to have the consumer
industry, and shelves are packed and banners
agreement ratified by that independent lawyer sitting
displayed just to provoke that fleeting urge to purchase
just across the floor? My, one must recognize that this
something untested, untried, and new, the transaction
one is a definite trendsetter.
cannot occur without quick means to realize and satisfy that purchase-urge. While a purchaser in a consumer
However, much more than ratification of consumer
mall can satisfy the urge to purchase products or
agreements, Rozario claims that the bulk of clients
services ‘on the spot’ there’s no way purchasers can
come from shoppers who are reminded of pending
satisfy an urge to find legal consultation ‘on the spot.’
personal issues on sight of the legal services booth.
Rozier’s strategy fills that gap nicely.
Walk-in clients come with cases of divorce, foreclosure and other legal topics, and sometimes just for a
Consumers in a mall are reminded of legal consultation
passing second opinion. Rozario’s kiosk, planted
required on pending personal issues by the presence of
squarely and strategically between an American Eagle
the retail law booth, and the significantly low fixed rate
Outfitters and a Victoria’s Secret shop catches the eye
works pique the purchase-urge.
of the right kind of people.
It’s a groundbreaking strategy, and I wouldn’t be
Rozier, now 40, told the Huff Post, “My first job was at
surprised to find consumer law firms following the trend
a Foot Locker in Jacksonville … Now 25 years later I’m
to set up consultation booths in retail malls.
back in the mall.”
It’s the reality – many times consumers are stumped
At Rozier’s original law office, clients have to schedule
and forced to purchase on good faith just because
appointments and pay an initial consultation fee of
the 57-page small print document is beyond their ken
$125, at the Law Booth they can walk in and consult
– putting them at mercy of the seller – just because
the lawyers present at a starting fee of $25.
they are on a high to purchase the product on the spot.
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