Tagged with 'legal'

According to this AmLaw Daily article, Still Loading: Law Firms lag behind the Rest of Corporate America on the Web, “there are still law firms of substantial size that have relatively poor Web site offerings, surprisingly poor Web sites.”

Yet as Sonny Cohen pointed out in his previous blog post, Award Winning Websites Announced By Web Marketing Association, legal websites that get their web design right are recognized and rewarded.

So what’s the real story here? Are law firms’ web designs lagging or worthy of lauding?

If you’re comparing American law firms to corporate America, apparently you’ll find lag in the area of website usability, interactivity, and innovation in design. But many law firms are going beyond “brochure-like” content towards client-centric and service-oriented site designs.

I appreciated Sonny Cohen’s comments on the AmLaw article, saying “the targeted personas for law firms are clients, prospects, potential lateral transfers and first year lawyers” and basically pointing out to other commenters that matching the needs of the users of the law firm’s website is more important than criticizing it based on their own personally-formed beliefs. Plus you need to tie the design into the firms business objectives – and being bookmarked isn’t a business objective. A persona-based approach to website design makes a lot of sense to me, and metrics for judging the effectiveness are a must.

The AmLaw article ends with a ranking list of the Top 100 AmLaw firms web sites. One note it does give you as a takeaway is that you can’t correlate web site design with revenue per partner. Yet without metrics there’s no way to prove this takeaway one way or another.

I found the AmLaw article informative but the comments were just as important – when analyzing effectiveness of a design or handing out rewards, make sure the criteria for judging the content and design matches that of the users of the site. Nicely done.

Today, the Web Marketing Association announced the winners in its annual design and development competition. Duo congratulates 5 clients who are the recipients of this international website recognition:

• Chicago Public Library – Government Standard of Excellence
• Valorem Law – Legal Standard of Excellence
• Chicago Public Schools Alumni – School Standard of Excellence
• Bracewell Giuliani – Legal Standard of Excellence
• B.C. Ziegler – Financial Services Outstanding Website

The common thread among these projects and our clients is their engagement and active collaboration with us to manage their content so they would realize meaningful business objectives. Our clients put a lot of effort into their projects and, in addition to gaining organizational benefit it is wonderful to see them be publicly recognized for their achievement. Congratulations.

Winning a Web Marketing Association WebAward competition, now in its 12th year, is particularly noteworthy. A panel of international judges applies a 10-point scale to 7 criteria for evaluating websites, recognizing the interplay of multiple factors for determining what works online. These criteria are:

• Design
• Innovation
• Content
• Technology
• Interactivity
• Copywriting
• Ease of use

Additionally, judges offered constructive criticism and emotional context to overcome the limitations of their numeric judging scale. Noting the interaction design of the Ziegler website one judge wrote, “You have done a great job of anticipating your audience.” A tip of the hat was extended to the complex underlying technology of the Chicago Public Library site with, “”This is a strong interactive site. It allows the users to interact with the site provider, allowing them to save time by doing research online…”

Reaffirming what many of us have felt about Chicago Public Schools Alumni website, “”This site is fantastic. Really impressive interactivity. Excellent work!” Our content-rich law firm clients’ sites were singled out as well regarding the rich content of Bracewell Giuliani, “The content is compelling.” and the positioning of Valorem, “”Great copy and distinct style and messaging. Sets it apart from the others without undermining credibility.”