LexMeet President and Founder Atty. Marlon P. Valderama (left) with former Solicitor General Atty. Florin “Pilo” Hilbay. (Contributed photo)

Seeking legal advice from lawyers is now more convenient and affordable as LexMeet, a real-time on-demand online legal consultation webspace where lawyers and clients meet for consultation, has launched its mobile application.

The LexMeet App released in November can be downloaded in Google Play and its IOS version will be soon available for download in the App Store.

“LexMeet serves as the Uber of lawyers, where client can seek lawyer’s advice by a mere click. Instead of a Uber vehicle matching with the nearest rider, LexMeet is where client’s legal problem is matched with the lawyer’s expertise, location and language and we serve as a bridge for them to meet via video or call conference,” said Atty. Marlon Valderama, founder of LexMeet, a wordplay on the Latin word for “law” and workplace verbatim for setting office meetings.

Valderama, managing partner of Valderama Law Office, is the country’s pioneer when it comes to e-lawyering. He introduced the e-lawyering concept as early as 2010 in his law office website, E-Lawyers Online.

Getting proper legal advice is difficult because there are fake attorneys and there is lack of physical or online access to legitimate lawyers. These problems are addressed by the LexMeet App by making legal consultations and service accessible online to Filipinos everywhere without breaking the bank.

Using the LexMeet App is simple. A client only needs to register personal details for free and purchase credits for as low as P500 via Paypal, Dragonpay, Coins.Ph and later on Google Pay. Clients can initiate a legal consultation request through the app, which matches their legal problem with a lawyer that meets their requirements. Example, when a client submits his/her legal problem about the title of his/her condominium unit, LexMeet gives him/her a list of lawyers specialiazing in condominium law.

Clients have to submit in advance their legal inquiries and provide their stories, objectives and questions as well as supporting documents through LexMeet sign-up forms. All consultations are conducted over video or voice call— possibly imposing for non-tech-savvy folks, but nevertheless more effective than a lifeless chat window.

Their credits are automatically paid to their matched lawyer after the meeting ends. Ratings and feedback mechanism help ensure that LexMeet’s crowdsourced network of 250 lawyers provide quality consultation, which seems to be the case as it boasts over 7,500 clients and counting.

Since its inception in 2017, Lexmeet serves as the online go-to-place of overseas Filipino workers and small and medium entrepreneurs.

“As we all know, the Philippines have more than 10.23 million migrant workers scattered all over the world. With the Filipino diaspora, there is a demand for legal services for legal issues left behind by our migrant workers such as marriage, support and custody issues, inheritance, investments, among others,” said Valderama.

“Also, we have so many SMEs, almost one million now, who are needing legal guidance from lawyers. The lack of online facility to help our OFWs and SMEs in solving their legal problems is our prime motivation in establishing a primary hub of e-lawyering,” he said.

LexMeet has been recently awarded as the Best Life Helper in the 2018 ASEAN Rice Bowl Startup Awards. It was recognize for its promising goal of making legal consultations inclusive for all Filipinos.