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What LawMatch is for a firm

LawMatch is a consumer legal site. People arrive with a problem they are still trying to name. An eviction notice. A dismissal. A Road Accident Fund claim. An estate that has stalled for two years. They read a plain guide, look at what the work usually costs, and then describe their own situation in their own words. That description becomes a lead.

We check the lead, work out which firms are eligible for it, and offer it to up to three of them. You read what the client wrote and decide whether to take it. That is the whole product.

LawMatch is not a law firm. We are not your agent, we are not a party to any mandate you sign, and we step out of the way the moment you accept. We are an advertising and referral service operated by Ophir Technologies (Pty) Ltd, and we sell exactly two things: a fixed price for each lead you accept, and a flat monthly fee for a featured listing. The binding agreement is on the attorney terms page, and this page does not replace it.

How a lead reaches you

The client completes a form describing the matter. They choose a category, tell us where they are, say how urgent it is, write a description in their own words, and give consent under the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 for their details to go to attorneys.

We then check the lead before any firm sees it. We look at whether the contact details are complete and whether the phone number is a real South African number. We look at how much the client has actually written, because a matter described in three words cannot be assessed by anyone. We look for spam patterns and for duplicates of a submission we have already sent out. A lead without consent never goes to a firm at all, and a lead below our quality threshold is held back rather than passed on.

A lead that clears the check goes to firms that are active, verified, listing that category as a practice area, serving that city or the whole province, and still under their own monthly lead cap. Order matters, so here it is exactly:

1. If the client came from your profile in the attorney directory and asked for your firm by name, you are offered the lead first.
2. Then firms with a featured listing.
3. Then every other eligible firm in turn, starting with the firm we matched least recently, so the rotation comes back around.

No firm can pay to be moved ahead of another on an ordinary lead. There is no bidding, no auction and no per lead upgrade. The only paid position in that order is the featured listing, which is a flat monthly fee, costs the same whether you receive many leads or none, and is labelled as featured wherever it appears. Everything after it is a rotation, and the rotation exists so that a firm that joined last month still sees work.

What you see before you decide

The offer shows the category and, where the client chose one, the sub area. It shows the province and city, the urgency the client selected, the description in the client's own words, and the fixed price you will pay if you accept.

It does not show the client's name, phone number or email address. Contact details are released when you accept, and not before. That is a deliberate choice: a client who consented to being contacted by an attorney did not consent to their number sitting in the inbox of every firm that looked and passed.

You have seven days to accept, from the link we send you or in the portal. After that the offer expires. Declined and expired leads are never billed, and declining does not count against you in the rotation.

What accepting means

Three things follow from accepting.

You agree to contact the client within one business day. Someone who has described a retrenchment or an arrest is waiting, and silence is the most common complaint consumers make about legal referral services.

You agree to pay the fixed price shown at acceptance. It appears on your next monthly statement.

You agree to record the outcome in the portal when you know it. Whether the client instructed you, whether the number worked, whether the matter was in your field at all. We use that to measure lead quality and to fix what is broken upstream. We do not use it to charge you more, and a firm that converts well pays the same price as one that does not.

What happens after the introduction is between you and the client. The mandate, the fee agreement and the professional relationship are yours.

Pricing, honestly

Lead prices are fixed amounts per accepted lead, set per category and, in some categories, per sub area, because a debt review enquiry and a medical negligence enquiry are not the same piece of work. The current price is shown in the portal before you accept, and again on the offer itself. We give notice in the portal before a price changes.

A featured listing is a flat monthly fee, billed monthly, cancellable in the portal. All prices exclude VAT, which is added on your statement.

Three things we do not do. We take no share of your fees. We charge no percentage of any matter, at any value, at any stage. We never charge the client anything, for a match or for anything else, which is why the consumer side of the site carries the guides and the legal aid information for people we cannot help commercially.

Bad leads

A lead that is not genuine should not be billed, and we would rather credit it than argue about it.

If a lead you accepted turns out to be a wrong or unreachable number, spam, a matter that is not a legal matter at all, or a duplicate of a lead you already accepted, request a credit in the portal within seven days of acceptance and say why. We review the request. Where we agree, the credit appears on your next statement or the line is removed before it is invoiced.

The line is drawn at whether the lead was real, not at whether it converted. A client who spoke to you and chose another firm is not a bad lead. A client who cannot afford your fee is not a bad lead. Most leads go to three firms, and only one of those firms can be instructed.

Billing

We issue one statement at the start of each month covering the previous month. It lists the leads you accepted, any credits, and your featured listing fee if you have one, with VAT.

Payment is due within 14 days of the statement date, by the method shown on it. If a statement goes unpaid we may pause your listing and stop sending leads until the account is settled, and we may charge interest at the rate the law allows.

Verification

We check registration with the Legal Practice Council before a firm receives any lead. A firm that has not been verified does not enter the matching pool, however complete its profile is.

Verification is not a once off. You must keep your status current and tell us promptly if a practitioner named on your listing is struck off or suspended, leaves the firm, or if the firm closes. We may check the register again at any time.

One point worth stating plainly. Firms that appear on the AttorneyOS directory are mirrored into the LawMatch directory automatically, but they are not verified automatically. A mirrored firm becomes eligible for leads only once we have an LPC number and a status showing the register itself was checked. A profile reviewed by AttorneyOS staff is not the same thing, so those firms go into our verification queue rather than going live with a badge we cannot stand behind.

The portal

Everything about your participation is controlled in the portal, by you, without emailing us.

You manage your listing content and practitioner names, your practice areas, and the provinces and cities you serve. You set a monthly cap on how many leads you will accept, so a busy month does not become an expensive one. You can pause the listing entirely and unpause it later.

You choose how leads reach you: by email, and by WhatsApp where you have given us a WhatsApp number and left that channel switched on. Accept and decline work from the link in the message, so a partner can respond from a phone without logging in. Firms that use AttorneyOS can have leads delivered straight into it, and firms building their own integration can issue API tokens and work against our published API documentation.

Your professional obligations

Your compliance is yours. The firm is responsible for meeting the Legal Practice Act 28 of 2014, the Legal Practice Council's rules and its code of conduct, including the rules on advertising and touting. You must not claim to specialise in an area unless you are entitled to, and your listing must be accurate.

Our commercial model is built with those rules in view. Our fees are fixed, they are set in advance, and they do not vary with the value of a matter or with what you charge the client. That is why the model is structured the way it is. If you believe any feature of the service sits badly with your professional obligations, do not use that feature and tell us.

Once a lead reaches you, the personal information in it is yours to protect. You become a responsible party under the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013. Use the information only to assess the matter and, if instructed, to act on it. Do not add the client to a marketing list, do not pass the lead to another firm, and do not keep the details longer than your retention rules and the Act allow. Our side of that is set out in the privacy policy.

What we do not promise

We do not promise volume. We do not guarantee that any lead will convert, and we do not guarantee quality beyond the checks described above and the credit process for leads that are not genuine.

There is no exclusivity. Up to three firms receive each lead, and the client chooses. If you want a closed pipeline, this is not it. What we offer is a known price, visible before you commit, with no claim on the fees that follow.

How to start

Register your firm using the registration link on this page. You will need your Legal Practice Council registration details, the practice areas you want leads in, and the provinces or cities you serve. We verify the firm before your listing goes live and before any lead reaches you.

Read the attorney terms before you register, because they are the binding agreement and this page is a summary of them. Our general terms of use apply as well. Where the two differ, the terms govern.

Frequently asked questions

Do I pay for leads I decline?

No. You are billed only for leads you accept. Declined leads cost nothing, expired leads cost nothing, and there is no charge for being listed unless you have chosen a featured listing.

How many other firms get the same lead?

Up to two others, so three firms at most. You are told nothing about which firms, and they are told nothing about you.

Does LawMatch take a percentage of my fees?

No. Never, at any value, at any stage. We charge a fixed price per accepted lead and a flat monthly featured listing fee. We are not a party to your mandate and we do not share in your fees.

What if the client never answers the phone?

If the number is wrong or unreachable, that is a bad lead. Request a credit in the portal within seven days of acceptance and tell us what happened. If the client simply chose a different firm, that is not a bad lead and it will be billed.

Can I choose which categories and areas I receive?

Yes. You set your practice areas and service areas in the portal, and only matters inside both reach you. You can also cap leads per month and pause at any time. The consumer guides show the kind of matter that arrives in each category, which helps when deciding what to switch on.

How long does verification take?

We check your Legal Practice Council registration manually before your listing goes live. We do not publish a turnaround time we cannot guarantee, and we will tell you if we need anything further from you.