October 09, 2024 | Ryan Sears
The D.C. Bar, the United States’ largest unified bar, needed a cutting-edge Lawyer Referral Service (LRS). Their challenge was efficiently matching clients with suitable attorneys. Aptaria developed an AI-powered and Salesforce-native LRS and integrated it with D.C. Bar’s existing systems, helping the Bar pioneer an intelligent, efficient, and accurate client-attorney matching mechanism.
For associations, engaging and retaining members is the primary KRA to drive sustained growth.
But what often goes under the radar is another challenge associations face: connecting their members’ expertise with those who need it, i.e., referrals.
Typically, associations that struggle to deliver accurate and fast referrals deal with complex (read: manual and slow) search systems built on vast amounts of data.
Naturally, this makes it difficult for potential clients to find the right expert or professional for their needs.
This is exactly the challenge D.C. Bar, the largest unified bar in the United States, aimed to solve for its 10,000+ association members.
The problem?
Unlike other bar associations, the D.C. Bar didn’t have a lawyer referral system (LRS) to begin with.
For Aptaria, this wasn’t a challenge but an opportunity to help the folks at D.C. Bar pioneer a cutting-edge and self-serve artificial intelligence LRS system—the kind that no other bar association had created before.
Opportunity: The need for a sophisticated AI referral system
The D.C. Bar, despite its well-established Salesforce instance, faced challenges in connecting clients with appropriate legal representation, i.e., attorneys.
As other bar associations in the United States had already implemented lawyer referral services, D.C. Bar recognized the need to develop a state-of-the-art solution that could exceed existing offerings.
- Streamline access to justice: Enable clients to easily describe legal issues and use AI to match them with suitable attorneys with an improved search process
- Ensure data security: Implement strict measures to protect client confidentiality and maintain the highest standards of information security in all interactions
- Maintain ease of use: Design AI systems that can be easily updated and maintained without requiring extensive technical expertise or frequent developer intervention
D.C. Bar’s objective was to build a sophisticated LRS that could save attorneys time marketing themselves and finding new clients, get their members noticed for niche legal representation needs, and learn from historical data to improve referral results.
Take a look at our blogs and other resources to understand our solution-oriented approach.
Solution: ARMing D.C. Bar with an AI referral system
Aptaria custom-built an AI Referral and Matching (ARM) system for D.C. Bar making them the first bar association to offer an AI-led LRS.
The referral portal developed would facilitate client request submissions and allow attorneys to manage their profiles and view client matches.
With ARM, associations can get their members in front of anyone who seeks their expertise, services, or guidance without the hassle of manual searches, slow output, and inaccurate results.
Salesforce Experience Cloud
For D.C. Bar, the ARM system is based on a user-friendly portal for clients and attorneys powered by Lightning Web Runtime architecture, which is known for its scalability and performance.
The system is built to be fast, safe, scalable and able to grow easily, and gives both clients and attorneys an easy-to-use website for handling their needs.
OpenAI model integration
The ARM system uses AI to understand both what clients are looking for and the skills attorneys have. It then compares them to make sure the right lawyer is matched to the client.
In more technical terms, natural language processing (NLP) generates vectors from client requests and attorney profiles, comparing them for semantic similarity, enabling accurate matches without storing sensitive data.
Vector database implementation
The AI checks how well a client’s needs match with an attorney’s profile and gives a percentage score showing how good the match is.
Naturally, the higher the match percentage, the more likely it is that an attorney’s skills and expertise match what someone’s looking for in a legal representative.
To improve their matching chances, attorneys can enrich their profiles with more details about their expertise and experience.
Data-driven architecture
The system was designed to facilitate streamlined future changes by using custom settings, custom metadata types, custom labels, and email templates.
In simpler terms, this means the system is easy to update without needing a developer intervention every time. This saves time and cuts down on execution bottlenecks when changes are needed.
Secure client interaction
Clients can use the site without needing to log in, but there are protections like CAPTCHA and email checks to stop bots from sending fake requests.
Most importantly, the system doesn’t save sensitive client details or share client contact info with lawyers.
Attorney profile management
Attorneys receive Salesforce Customer Community Plus licenses for easy profile updates and match viewing.
Additionally, attorneys can log in using single sign-on (SSO) through the D.C. Bar’s existing portal for seamless access and an added layer of security.
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Impact: D.C. Bar pioneers an intelligent AI referral system
With Aptaria’s AI referral system, D.C. Bar can now match clients with attorneys faster and more accurately. Attorneys get more visibility and can spend more time delivering their expertise instead of marketing themselves.
- Enhanced access to justice: Clients in Washington D.C. can securely search for attorneys without creating a profile. After submitting a request, they receive an AI-generated list of attorneys ranked by match percentage
- Empowered attorneys: The new system improves attorney-client matching, increasing professional opportunities. Attorneys can log in with existing credentials and customize their profiles after purchasing an LRS membership
- Improve the legal system: The AI-powered matching process ensures that clients are connected faster than ever before with the most suitable attorneys for their needs
Here’s a list of the variety of services by Aptaria.
The AI-led lawyer referral system is also the first of its kind to be launched by a bar association, putting the D.C. Bar at the forefront of technological innovation for legal associations.
Reach out to us if you need Aptaria to build custom solutions for your organization.
D.C. Bar’s new Lawyer Referral Service is expected to be made available to clients in 2025. Learn more about it here.
