Paid consultation portals that match Chicago clients with the right attorney.

New attorneys apply through a guided form that collects their ARDC registration details, practice areas, malpractice cover and office addresses. Your staff confirm good standing against the ARDC lawyer search before a profile goes live, and the system flags renewals so a lapsed registration takes the listing down rather than leaving it visible.

Clients describe their issue in plain words, such as an eviction notice, a DUI arrest or a workers' compensation claim, and the portal suggests the practice area. Filters cover language spoken, office location from the Loop to Schaumburg, video availability and the courts an attorney regularly appears in, including the Daley Center and suburban Cook County courthouses.

Results are ordered by transparent, mechanical criteria you publish, such as distance, availability and language, never by who pays more. Sponsored placements, if you sell them, are labeled as advertising. This keeps the portal on the advertising side of Illinois Rule 7.2 rather than drifting into paid recommendations.

The client sees the consultation fee, length and format before paying by card, Apple Pay or Google Pay. Card data stays inside the processor's hosted fields so the portal keeps a narrow PCI DSS scope. Larger advance fees can be routed straight to the attorney's IOLTA account instead of passing through the operator.

Each attorney connects a payout account verified by the payment processor. Consultation fees settle to the attorney, and your platform charge is billed separately as a flat listing or subscription fee. We avoid models where the operator takes a percentage of legal fees, since Illinois Rule 5.4 bars fee sharing with nonlawyers.

Before a slot is confirmed, the client lists the other parties involved. The attorney sees those names first and can decline without reading the client's story, which protects both sides from a conflict discovered after confidential facts have been shared.

Attorneys sync the portal with Outlook or Google calendars and choose which slots are for video, phone or in office meetings at their own address. Buffers stop a booking landing straight after a morning call at the Daley Center, and reminders go out by email and text with the meeting link or the office directions the client needs.

Where identity matters, we use document and database checks rather than face geometry or voiceprints. If a client insists on a selfie match through a vendor, the portal collects written release, publishes a retention schedule and limits storage, because the Biometric Information Privacy Act gives Illinois residents a private right of action.

The search, profile and checkout screens can run in Spanish and Polish alongside English, with room to add Chinese, Arabic or Korean. Attorneys tag the languages they actually consult in, and confirmation emails follow the language the client chose, so a family in Little Village reads the same terms as a client in Lincoln Park.

Each attorney sets a cancellation window within limits you define. Missed meetings, partial refunds and fee complaints move through a dispute queue with time stamps, messages and payment records attached, so your support team resolves them from evidence rather than memory.