North Carolina Criminal and Traffic Leads and Direct Mail
The leads: We collect all North Carolina criminal and traffic leads.
Types of service: We have two types of service: the Traditional Service and the Full Service. With the Traditional Service, we collect leads on newly filed North Carolina criminal and traffic cases. We filter these leads according to your specifications in terms of the counties you are interested in, the types of charges (cases) you are interested in, and your general marketing strategy. We can then send you a spreadsheet containing these leads. You only pay for the leads we send you and we only send you the leads that you want. In addition, we also offer a free mail merge service. If you email us your letters, we will keep them on file, and then each day, Monday through Friday, we will mail merge the leads into your letters and then email you the already mail merged letters ready for printing. We can also perform free mail merge into labels as long as you email us the brand name and number of the labels that you use.
For the Full Service, we handle the entire process for you, from collecting the newly filed North Carolina criminal and traffic cases (the leads), filtering them to your specifications in terms of the counties you want, the types of charges that you are interested in, and any other strategy that you want to execute. We then print your envelopes and letters in full color and mail off your mail pieces (advertisements). We mail each day, Monday through Friday. We are professional mailers and maintain multiple permits with USPS.
Price: For the Traditional Service, there is a one month (30 calendar day) no obligation free trial, followed by $0.45 per record. For the Full Service, the price is $0.85 per mail piece for the first 4 weeks of service, followed by $1.15 per mail piece. The Full Service price is all-inclusive, and includes the cost of the leads as well as postage, labor, and materials. We can also print in full color on both the envelopes and the letters at no extra charge.
There are also no long term commitments. You can cancel anytime just by notifying us by email. With either the Traditional Service or Full Service, you can cap the amount you want to spend so you can stay within your marketing budget.
Do we collect leads other than criminal and traffic data in North Carolina? No
How fresh are the North Carolina leads? We collect the North Carolina leads each day, every day, so the leads are as fresh as the leads can be. We email the leads to you each day, Monday through Friday. Monday's data contains the leads from the weekend.
I am worried about returned mail and waste. What do you do to reduce returned mail? We run the data through special address correction software and the address correction software eliminates bad, unfixable addresses, and corrects bad, fixable addresses. Address correction software will not eliminate all bad addresses or returned mail but it will substantially reduce bad addresses and the associated waste.
Can I get only the types of cases I want and only in the counties that I want? Yes. We can filter the data to your specifications according to county and type of cases.
Can you help me execute complex marketing strategies? Yes, we can help you with just about any strategy, including, but not limited to:
- Identifying out-of-state defendants so that you can target those most likely to hire an attorney instead of going to court themselves.
- Identifying Hispanic records so that you can send an advertisement in Spanish.
- Mailing for complex combinations of charges: like only mailing for driving on a suspended license if the defendant is also charged with either a DUI or a reckless driving charge.
Is it easy to make changes? Yes, just email us and we can make the changes for you.
Any other special characteristics of your service? Yes, we can provide free mail merge to make things easier on your end. Basically, you email us your letters and we keep them on file. Each day, we mail merge the data into the letters, and then email you the already mail-merged letters along with the data. You can just open up the document containing the mail-merged letters and hit “print.” Then you can do the rest of the mailing process. It is that easy. There is no extra charge for mail merge.
Can you do the mailings for me? Yes. This is called our Full Service. The price is $1.15 per mail piece ($0.85 for the first 4 weeks of service). This is an all-inclusive price and includes the cost of the leads, labor, postage, and materials. We simply invoice you once every two weeks by adding the number of mail pieces mailed off for you during that two week period. You can also cap the amount that you want to spend so you stay within your marketing budget.
Do you have any samples of the data or sample letters for me to look at? Yes, please email us at info@directlegalmail.com or use the contact box to the right, and we will send you a sample of the data and/or sample letters.
Ethics rules relating to direct mail advertising in North Carolina
RULE 7.3 DIRECT CONTACT WITH POTENTIAL CLIENTS
(a) “Solicitation” or “solicit” denotes a communication initiated by the lawyer that is directed to a specific person and that offers to provide, or can reasonably be understood as offering to provide, legal services.
(b) A lawyer shall not solicit professional employment by live person-to-person contact when a significant motive for the lawyer's doing so is the lawyer's or law firm’s pecuniary gain, unless the contact is with a:
(1) lawyer;
(2) person who has a family, close personal, or prior business or professional relationship with the lawyer or law firm; or
(3) person who routinely uses for business purposes the type of legal services offered by the lawyer.
(c) A lawyer shall not solicit professional employment even when not otherwise prohibited by paragraph (a), if:
(1) the target of the solicitation has made known to the lawyer a desire not to be solicited by the lawyer; or
(2) the solicitation involves coercion, duress, or harassment.
(d) This Rule does not prohibit communications authorized by law or ordered by a court or other tribunal.
(e) Notwithstanding the prohibitions in this Rule, a lawyer may participate with a prepaid legal service plan in compliance with 27 N.C. Admin. Code 1E.0301 et seq. that uses live person-to-person contact to enroll members or sell subscriptions for the plan to persons who are not known to need legal services in a particular matter covered by the plan, provided that, after reasonable investigation, the lawyer must have a good faith belief that the plan is being operated in compliance with 27 N.C. Admin. Code 1E.0301 et seq., and the lawyer’s participation in the plan does not otherwise violate the Rules of Professional Conduct.
Comment
[1] Paragraph (b) prohibits a lawyer from soliciting professional employment by live person-to-person contact when a significant motive for the lawyer’s doing so is the lawyer’s or the law firm’s pecuniary gain. A lawyer's communication is not a solicitation if it is directed to the general public, such as through a billboard, an Internet banner advertisement, a website or a television commercial, or if it is in response to a request for information or is automatically generated in response to electronic searches.
[2] “Live person-to-person contact” means in-person, face-to-face, live telephone and other real-time visual or auditory person-to-person communications, where the person is subject to a direct personal encounter without time for reflection. Such person-to-person contact does not include chat rooms, text messages, or other written communications that recipients may easily disregard. A potential for overreaching exists when a lawyer, seeking pecuniary gain, solicits a person known to be in need of legal services by live person-to-person contact. This form of contact subjects a person to the private importuning of the trained advocate in a direct interpersonal encounter. The person, who may already feel overwhelmed by the circumstances giving rise to the need for legal services, may find it difficult fully to evaluate all available alternatives with reasoned judgment and appropriate self-interest in the face of the lawyer's presence and insistence upon an immediate response. The situation is fraught with the possibility of undue influence, intimidation, and over-reaching.
[3] This potential for overreaching inherent in live person-to-person justifies its prohibition, since lawyers have alternative means of conveying necessary information. In particular, communications can be mailed or transmitted by email or other electronic means that do not violate other laws. These forms of communications make it possible for the public to be informed about the need for legal services, and about the qualifications of available lawyers and law firms, without subjecting the public to live person-to-person persuasion that may overwhelm a person's judgment.
[4] The contents of live person-to-person contact can be disputed and may not be subject to third-party scrutiny. Consequently, they are much more likely to approach (and occasionally cross) the dividing line between accurate representations and those that are false and misleading.
[5] There is far less likelihood that a lawyer would engage in overreaching against a former client, or a person with whom the lawyer has a close personal, family, business, or professional relationship, or in situations in which the lawyer is motivated by considerations other than the lawyer's pecuniary gain. Nor is there a serious potential for abuse when the person contacted is a lawyer or is known to routinely use the type of legal services involved for business purposes. Examples include persons who routinely hire outside counsel to represent the entity; entrepreneurs who regularly engage business, employment, or intellectual property lawyers; small business proprietors who routinely hire lawyers for lease or contract issues; and other people who routinely retain lawyers for business transactions or formations. Paragraph (a) is not intended to prohibit a lawyer from participating in constitutionally protected activities of public or charitable legal-service organizations or bona fide political, social, civic, fraternal, employee or trade organizations whose purposes include providing or recommending legal services to its members or beneficiaries.
[6] A solicitation that contains false or misleading information within the meaning of Rule 7.1, which involves coercion, duress, or harassment within the meaning of Rule 7.3(c)(2), or that involves contact with someone who has made known to the lawyer a desire not to be solicited by the lawyer within the meaning of Rule 7.3(c)(1) is prohibited.
Contact to Establish Prepaid Legal Service Plan
[7] This Rule does not prohibit a lawyer from contacting representatives of organizations or groups that may be interested in establishing a group or prepaid legal plan for their members, insureds, beneficiaries, or other third parties for the purpose of informing such entities of the availability of and details concerning the plan or arrangement which the lawyer or lawyer's firm is willing to offer. This form of communication is not directed to people who are seeking legal services for themselves. Rather, it is usually addressed to an individual acting in a fiduciary capacity seeking a supplier of legal services for others who may, if they choose, become prospective clients of the lawyer. Under these circumstances, the activity which the lawyer undertakes in communicating with such representatives and the type of information transmitted to the individual are functionally similar to and serve the same purpose as advertising permitted under Rule 7.2.
[8] Communications authorized by law or ordered by a court or tribunal include a notice to potential members of a class in class action litigation.
Contact to Enroll Members in Prepaid Legal Service Plan
[9] Paragraph (e) of this Rule permits a lawyer to participate with an organization which uses personal contact to enroll members for its group or prepaid legal service plan, provided that the personal contact is not undertaken by any lawyer who would be a provider of legal services through the plan. The organization must not be owned by or directed (whether as manager or otherwise) by any lawyer or law firm that participates in the plan. For example, paragraph (e) would not permit a lawyer to create an organization controlled directly or indirectly by the lawyer and use the organization for the person-to-person solicitation of legal employment of the lawyer through memberships in the plan or otherwise. The communication permitted by these organizations also must not be directed to a person known to need legal services in a particular matter, but must be designed to inform potential plan members generally of another means of affordable legal services. Lawyers who participate in a legal service plan must reasonably assure that the plan sponsors are in compliance with 27 N.C. Admin. Code 1E.0301 et seq., as well as Rules 7.1, 7.2 and 7.3(c).
History Note: Statutory Authority G.S. 84-23
Adopted by the Supreme Court: July 24, 1997
Amendments Approved by the Supreme Court: March 1, 2003; October 6, 2004; November 16, 2006; August 23, 2007; August 25, 2011; October 2, 2014; September 28, 2017; April 21, 2021