Why IT has become so important for lawyers
In the past, lawyers mainly obtained new cases through word of mouth and by placing advertisements in local newspapers and magazines. Those days are long gone, but many lawyers still advertise in this way. This causes problems for personal injury lawyers, especially in the Netherlands. The number of personal injury lawyers in Rotterdam (Dutch: letselschade advocaat Rotterdam) has decreased sharply in recent years.
Communicating with the court
You can’t imagine it, but it’s not a lie! Until a few years ago, communication with the courts in the Netherlands was still done by fax! Legal documents, requests and letters were sent to the judge by fax in 2022 by a personal injury lawyer in Nijmegen.
More than a year ago it has finally become possible to submit documents to courts by email via a secure connection. Faxing is now no longer possible with the judiciary.
The judiciary has also tried to automate the entire legal process. Hundreds of millions of euros have been pumped into a system that allowed for digital litigation. However, it never happened and the solution has now been found in secure emailing with the court.
IT in the legal profession
Things aren’t much better in the legal profession, at least when it comes to personal injury lawyers in the Netherlands. This leads to major problems in the Dutch legal profession. Although most personal injury lawyers in the Netherlands have switched to a digital file, there is still much to be gained. There are few or no administration programs and invoicing programs. But the biggest problems arise in the field of SEO and SEA.
SEO and SEO for personal injury lawyers
In the Netherlands, as a personal injury victim you can often contact a personal injury lawyer for free. This is regulated by law. This states that a victim of a traffic accident or industrial accident can engage a personal injury lawyer free of charge to recover personal injury damages from the liable person or his personal injury insurance. You might say it’s a nice system, but it also poses a major problem.
In the Netherlands, personal injury lawyers are slowly but surely being displaced by personal injury agencies that have a lot of knowledge of SEO and SEA. They try to reach personal injury victims with expensive campaigns. The result is that personal injury lawyers have less and less to do.
The danger of personal injury agencies is that the quality of legal assistance is often substandard, resulting in harmful consequences for the personal injury victim. For example, the Dutch system of free legal assistance may seem to work well, but there are also dangers.
The solution seems simple, personal injury lawyers must also focus on SEO and SEA and modernize further. However, in practice this does not happen. Does this mean the end of the personal injury lawyer in the Netherlands? A number of law firms are now in possession of internet marketing, but there is still a lot of profit to be made. The question is whether they will ever catch up with the personal injury agencies.