Sarah Picciotto, founder of Vancouver’s OnPoint Legal Research Law Corp. Photo by Dina Goldstein Comments? Please contact us at comments@lawyersweekly.ca. Please include your name, your law firm or company name and address.

Sarah Picciotto is pioneering a new business model that could change the way smaller law firms do research and possibly help narrow the ever-widening gap between the legal industry’s major players and the small law firms.

Picciotto’s venture – OnPoint Legal Research Law Corp. – offers professional legal research, writing and analysis aimed toward small law firms and sole practitioners who don’t have the budget of their larger counterparts to house legal research teams.

These lawyers have traditionally used freelance legal researchers to help them prepare a case, but OnPoint is one of the first established firms made up of actual lawyers in the country to focus on research services.

“A large firm often has a student or an associate who can put aside everything to assist a partner in doing research,” Picciotto said. “Small firms don’t have someone to pass research off to. Our staff specializes in researching, so we can provide a quick turn around time and make sure a lawyer goes to court well prepared.”

Picciotto figured this out in the process of developing her legal career. She honed her research skills as a law clerk at the Supreme Court of B.C., but it was only after practising at Vancouver’s Edwards, Kenny & Bray LLP that she decided she wanted to specialize in research. That’s when she began freelancing for various clients.

“After I’d been doing research for a couple of years, the number of lawyers requesting my services was growing, and I realized there was a good market there,” Picciotto said.

And after learning about some successful legal research firms in the U.S., as well as the increasing demand for her services from smaller firms and sole practitioners in Canada, Picciotto decided to launch her own company in 2000. In five years, she built a staff of four researchers that services 150 small firm clients across British Columbia.

But even though the firm has grown in that time, Picciotto says that right now, most people in the industry aren’t yet aware of the service, but she expects that to change.
“It’s a fairly new idea, so it’s my task to try to educate lawyers,” she explained. “The benefits are good, so once people are introduced to the concept, I think more of them will use the service.”

Jack Adelaar is a sole practitioner in Vancouver who hires OnPoint to do research on corporate litigation and contract law. “It’s helped me be better prepared,” Adelaar said. “The researchers can dig up things that I’ve heard about but haven’t had the time to look up. I think it helps level the playing field between sole practitioners and large firms.”

And Margaret Hall, director of legal research and writing at the University of British Columbia Faculty of Law, said it’s a growing trend for many small- and medium-size firms to choose to outsource their research.

“Historically, firms that couldn’t meet their needs internally had to somehow stumble across a good freelancer they could use,” she noted. “I guess it was just matter of time before someone got organized about it and developed a company with more than one person working there. There’s a need there, so it’s a very smart thing for someone to create a professional, marketed entity where clients know what they’re going to get.”

Hall adds that a number of trends are converging to make the timing right for legal research companies: more people with legal training now desire the flexibility of working as a researcher and a scarcity of positions in firms means more lawyers are willing to take on research roles.

She also notes that sometimes lawyers aren’t satisfied with research done by inexperienced students and may prefer to turn to a professional. However, she wonders if the entry of legal research companies into the marketplace could create difficulties for students and recent graduates.

“I can conjecture that if firms can just outsource their research needs, which were traditionally provided by articling students and junior people in a firm, there may be less of need to bring in younger people,” Hall said.

Barb Cotton runs Bottom Line Research & Communications, another legal research company based in Calgary. After working as a research director for a large firm, Cotton decided to start her own freelance research business in 1993 so she could have a flexible schedule to take care of her two young children.

Today, she has nine female lawyers subcontracting for her – most who have small children themselves – and Bottom Line has over 100 clients across Alberta.

“Most of my work is for courtroom lawyers who need to be right up to date,” said Cotton. “We have nine lawyers so we can always provide a speedy response. We all work out of our homes, which keeps the overhead down and allows us to keep our rates low.”

Cotton also thinks the concept of a legal research firm will become more popular in the years to come. “In the U.S. there are some very big research companies that have over a hundred subcontractors. That’s the way things are going,” she explained. “As the legal world gets more and more complicated, lawyers need researchers with experience and specialized skills.”

Bottom Line will soon find itself with some competition: Picciotto’s company, OnPoint, has plans to expand into Alberta. However, Cotton isn’t concerned; she says there’s more than enough business in the province to sustain both legal research firms.

For her part, Picciotto has just started making trips to Alberta to meet with potential clients. But the company does not plan on opening a branch in the province. Instead, OnPoint’s researchers will continue to be based in Vancouver, where they have access to online databases and national courthouse documents.

Picciotto says her company will provide research on Alberta cases and laws, even though they aren’t located in the province.

“With current research techniques, it doesn’t matter where you are,” said Picciotto. “We already have many clients in northern B.C. that we have never met. The problems of distance are easily solved with couriers, fax, and e-mail.”

OnPoint doesn’t plan to stop at Alberta — Picciotto sees the province as the first step in the company’s expansion across the country. She thinks lawyers across Canada would benefit from using a legal research company.