Attorneys and law firms are increasingly turning to the Internet to bring in new business, hoping to catch the eyes of potential clients with a pithy domain name for their websites.

The problem many lawyers face today, however, is that other firms and attorneys have already gobbled up some of the best dot-com options. But Culver City’s Minds + Machines Group Ltd. thinks it has the solution.

The company has begun selling domain names that end in dot-law to credentialed lawyers and law firms with registered trademarks. All other legal practitioners will be able to snag their own dot-law domain name next month.

International law firms DLA Piper and Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom last month became among the first to secure a dot-law domain, and Minds + Machines anticipates others will be quick to follow suit.

Lou Andreozzi, who oversees dot-law sales for the company, said he expects to register more than 100,000 names within the next two years.

“We have significant interest coming in from virtually every corner of the United States as well as the United Kingdom, Asia and continental Europe,” he said.

At the same time, consumers are accustomed to visiting websites ending in dot-com and it’s hard to say whether many will embrace the new options.

Jonathan Fitzgarrald, managing partner of Beverly Hills legal marketing firm Equinox Strategy Partners, said he’s not convinced consumers will gravitate toward new domain names, such as those ending in dot-law.

“If you’re a law firm or lawyer, anything other than using the dot-com extension, I think causes confusion,” Fitzgarrald said. “I think there are plenty of (dot-com) options still available if firms will get creative. They might not get their first option, but their second or third options are good enough.”

Still, even if they won’t actively use the name as their primary Web identity, it might pay for law firms to claim that Internet real estate before someone else does.

To that end, some of L.A.’s largest firms are at least considering a dot-law domain name.

Julie Fei, a spokeswoman for O’Melveny & Myers, said her firm has not yet applied for a dot-law domain, but it could do so eventually. Meantime, Latham & Watkins, a longtime rival of O’Melveny’s, is actively considering its options.  

“A law firm will certainly want to make it easy for clients and prospective clients to find us, so the dot-law option is something we will explore,” said Latham spokesman Frank Pizzurro.

Big winner?

Minds + Machines, which is publicly traded on the London Stock Exchange but houses its U.S. operations in Culver City, launched its first batch of top-level domains – such as dot-beer, dot-surf and dot-cooking – last September. Its most successful has been dot-work, which launched in February and had more than 20,000 registrations within two months.

Chief Executive Antony Van Couvering said his company’s dot-law domain names are poised to be even more successful.

“Preliminary indications show there is a very, very strong interest compared to the other ones we’ve launched so far,” Van Couvering said. “Typically our job is to get people informed and tell them about it, and usually there are a lot of questions. But in this case, people are getting it immediately.”

Unlike the company’s other domain name options, there is a verification process that must take place before Minds + Machines will sell a dot-law name, Van Couvering said.

Specifically, the company will ensure the lawyer or law firm is certified to practice law. For example, local attorneys must be a member of the State Bar of California in good standing before they can purchase a dot-law domain name.

The price to secure a website ending in dot-law starts at $210 a year, which includes a $10 verification fee, Van Couvering said.

Premium domain names, such as Divorce.law and Immigration.law, will be auctioned shortly after the general availability period begins Oct. 12. Andreozzi said premium domain names will command much higher prices, though he wouldn’t provide specific figures.

“The economics are important,” he said, “but we want to make sure they get in the hands of the right people to make sure we build the dot-law brand.”

Darren Kavinoky, who has law offices in Century City and Encino, is no stranger to the importance of building a brand. The criminal defense lawyer has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to market his legal services with the “NoCuffs” trademark. Today, he owns the website NoCuffs.com and 1-800-NoCuffs toll-free number.

Even so, Kavinoky said he doesn’t see much value in the dot-law domain names. What’s more, the only reason he would consider buying NoCuffs.law is to prevent a competitor from getting it.

Years ago, before he launched his NoCuffs brand, Kavinoky said he wanted to use the phone number 1-800-Got-A-DUI. It wasn’t available, he recalled, so he settled for 1-866-Got-A-DUI.

“It wasn’t producing the results I wanted,” he said. “I remember at a conference, the guy who owned 1-800-Got-A-DUI rushed up to me and gave me a big hug because I was driving in so much business for him.”

That’s because, Kavinoky said, consumers automatically think of 1-800 when they think of toll-free numbers. In the same way, he expects consumers will naturally type dot-com at the end of a domain name.

But at the end of the day, he said, Minds + Machines is likely to profit from its dot-law options.

“There’s massive scarcity associated with the domain world – because there’s only one of each domain name – and I think that’s one of the reasons the company that owns it is going to be the big winner here,” Kavinoky said. “The firms that have money to spend, they’re going to make a fear-based, nondata-driven decision, so the owner of the dot-law data set, they’re going to generate a lot of revenue.”