LEGAL SERVICES SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT

ABOUT LEGALSHIELD

In more than 75% of all civil trial cases in the United States, at least one person involved does not have a lawyer. Derek Bok, an American lawyer and the former president of Harvard University, believes, "There is far too much law for those who can afford it and far too little for those who cannot."

LegalShield aims to remedy this by making legal services affordable and accessible throughout the US, Canada, and the UK for both individuals and businesses. Instead of paying $150 - $400 an hour for legal help, LegalShield customers, both corporate and consumer, can access legal counsel and advice from qualified lawyers for a small monthly fee. For over 45 years, LegalShield's plans have offered the most comprehensive coverage, including speeding ticket assistance, contract review, last will assistance, trial defense services, and much more.

Their product “Launch by LegalShield” helps entrepreneurs correctly start their own business with the help of a local business attorney. The appointed attorney aids with all the paperwork associated with starting a business and providing legal support for three months after the business is formed.

LegalShield also provides identity theft solutions through its “IDShield” product. For a monthly fee, IDShield prevents identity theft from happening by monitoring a user's presence online. Users are notified of any unusual activity to take action before they become a victim of identity theft.

THE CHALLENGE

LegalShield's old checkout system could not integrate new features that the sales channel managers required, which included:

• Maintaining the state of the cart for a specified time.
• The ability to connect sales associates with new customers.
• The functionality to export cart contents to any of their other sales channels.

AccelOne noticed some room for improvement within the user experience (UX) of LegalShield’s existing checkout process. An outdated interface and user journey resulted in frustrated users who often abandoned their shopping carts, which resulted in LegalShield losing an unacceptable number of sales.

Additionally, LegalShield did not have the capability to follow up with these disgruntled users immediately after the attempted transaction. The company managed multiple websites designed to target different types of customers, but the cart/checkout process did not effectively integrate with all of the sites. LegalShield needed a way to improve their online sales closing ratio by improving the user journey and matching customers with the right services.

THE PLAN

AccelOne was tasked with developing a new generic cart/checkout process that integrated with all of their channels. This purchase platform would have to handle all the required functionalities needed to address customer expectations and provide a seamless experience.

LegalShield's tech team manages their source code repository via an extremely robust and secure variation of the Gitflow workflow. AccelOne’s team adopted this workflow and followed all of LegalShield’s procedures during the project. The workflow involves a strict branching model designed around the project release, with several approval steps before release, including code reviews and other checks. The Codeship tool was also used as the CI/CD (continuous integration/continuous deployment) platform.

Diagram of development and QA GitFlow:

The technology stack was as follows: Frontend: Angular, Typescript API: Node, Express, Mongo, Redis

Development Cycle:

• Development
• Feature branch
• Sandbox deploy
• Release branch
• User acceptance testing (UAT
• Master
• Production deploy

Within each environment, the code quality and unit testing is evaluated in order to be deployed. For the code to pass, it must be reviewed twice by developers who were not involved with the initial development. Once code is ready to deploy, unit tests - which were developed by AccelOne’s engineering team - are executed via an automated process. The new version is also automatically published in the specified environment after testing, and UAT (user acceptance testing) can begin.

AccelOne’s role in engineering and development spanned front end and back end programming with deployment orchestration. The team worked under an agile Scrum methodology, in which work is broken down into sprints (specific set time frames for goals to be completed). Development activities were monitored by a visual Kanban board for improved efficiency, collaboration, productivity, and flexibility throughout the project.

QA Cycle:

• Master
• Hotfix branch
• UAT deploy
• Master branch
• Production deploy
• Develop branch

The new system is continuously monitored using Raygun, New Relic, and Solarwind. If any error occurs, a contingency plan is in place to deal with the issue.

RESULTS

LegalShield's new checkout process is now live on one of their primary channels, We Are LegalShield, which hosts individual sales websites for LegalShield’s team of independent sales associates. With the new system, a cart within one channel can be carried over into another channel, where the checkout process can be completed. For example, a user can add a plan to their cart within LegalShield, close the website, and then initiate a new session on We Are LegalShield, where their cart will be intact with their chosen plan.

The new and improved checkout process improves the user's experience, increases conversion rates, and bolsters other related sales metrics. LegalShield now automatically follows up with a potential customer who abandoned their cart. The solution will also help improve sales for LegalShield’s sales associates, who may lose sales if a user leaves WeAreLegalShield.com. The new checkout works independently from LegalShield's API, eliminating previous performance issues.

AccelOne not only developed a new product for LegalShield, but also introduced LegalShield to a new work methodology. AccelOne's approach to software development allowed LegalShield to rethink their team dynamics as well as previous processes that had resulted in reduced productivity. Members of the LegalShield team associated with the new cart/checkout were transferred to other LegalShield teams to establish the new work methodology.