tortlconnect · The matching engine
Most "lawyer referral" services are auctions in a trench coat — the firm with the highest bid wins the lead, and the consumer is what's being sold. tortlconnect is the matching engine inside tortl. It surfaces attorneys based on fit. The weights are published. The features are documented. The consumer is the client, not the inventory.
Consumer access opens at public launch. Billing begins then — not now. Founding-rate enrollment closes the same day.
Where the product stands
tortl is currently in a soft family beta. The consumer app is on the App Store; the directory and matching engine you are reading about light up when public consumer access ships. Until that day, no consumer is searching for attorneys through tortlconnect, and no attorney is being billed.
Apply to the founding cohort now and your listing is built, your bar standing is verified, and your profile is ranked into the algorithm the moment the directory opens. The $149 monthly rate is locked for the lifetime of your listing — for every attorney who joins before consumer access goes live. After that, founding rates close and future onboarding moves to the public price.
Nothing about your tortlconnect listing costs anything until a consumer can actually use it.
The problem we're solving
A driver is hit on a Tuesday afternoon. By Tuesday evening they have been called by three personal-injury firms, none of whom they ever contacted directly. Each call ends with a soft pitch and a paper retainer. None of the callers know the case — they bought a lead.
The infrastructure that produced those calls is profitable, well documented, and almost universally unaccountable to the people it serves. Lead brokers rank attorneys by who pays the most. Consumers can't see how they're being routed. Attorneys pay full price for leads that don't fit their practice. The only winner is the broker.
A directory should rank by fit. The first thing tortlconnect does is publish the fit calculation.
tortl is consumer software. tortlconnect is the matching layer that sits between the consumer's case and an attorney's profile. It is weighted, bidirectional, and open. The score that ranks an attorney is the same score that an attorney sees — and either side can see why a particular match scored the way it did.
How tortlconnect is different
The match score is a function of fit between the case and the attorney's declared practice — not a function of who paid the most this month. Browse impressions in the open directory can be bid on; ranked match results cannot. The two views are kept structurally separate, and the line between them is named on every page where pricing comes up.
The same thirteen features that rank attorneys for a consumer also rank cases for an attorney — with different weights, since the two perspectives optimize for different things. Consumers care about specialty depth and reputation. Attorneys care about recovery probability and intake quality. Both views are honest.
A weighted sum can hide a catastrophic failure. If an attorney is technically a fit but has a 72-hour average response time on an urgent case, the score is multiplicatively dampened. The same applies to thin intake, weak specialty depth, and recovery probability that falls below the floor.
Every feature has a public definition. Every weight table is published. Every hard filter is named. If you want to understand why a particular case landed where it did, the math is on the page — not behind a sales call.
Founding member pricing
Founding attorneys lock in $149 per month, indefinitely. No price escalators. No tiers. No surprise increases when the platform matures. It is a single line item, the same every month, for as long as you carry a tortlconnect listing — and the first invoice is dated the day consumer access opens to the public.
Two product surfaces, two pricing models. When a consumer's case is scored against your profile, you cannot pay your way up the list. When a consumer opens the directory and scrolls all in-state PI attorneys, you can bid for higher impression order — and bidding stops the moment your daily budget caps. The first is a ranking. The second is a browseable list. We keep them separate, and we tell consumers which one they are looking at.
The founding rate exists because launching a directory requires the people on the directory. The attorneys who sign on now get the price that reflects that.
Apply to the founding cohort
Onboarding takes about ten minutes. We confirm bar standing, practice areas, and the inputs your matches will be weighted on. Your listing is built and ranked into the algorithm immediately — and billing does not begin until consumer access opens at public launch.
More to read
Your first thirty days on tortlconnect.
Two weight tables. Thirteen features. Five penalties.
The conversion case, in editorial.
One hypothetical case, one hypothetical attorney, scored.
tortlconnect against lead brokers, directories, and DIY.
Native apps, outcomes loop, integrations, co-counsel marketplace.
Why this exists, what we build, where the product stands today.
Sixteen answers to the most common attorney questions.