For the past six years, Intendance has been reporting on how effective legal websites are at presenting both firms and chambers to the marketplace, including how these organisations communicate with their clients, staff and potential recruits — and the world at large. Our latest report, The Intendance Fast Fifty Solicitors’ Websites 2007: Who is Winning and Why, identifies the best and worst websites among the fastest-growing top 100 UK law firms and presents the findings of an extensive investigation into what makes an effective legal website.
Using a website rating system based on 73 criteria, sub-divided into four categories: content, usability, design and marketing (‘marketing’ being an assessment of brand values communication and market positioning), we set a ‘best practice’ benchmark for legal websites. We juxtaposed this information with the results of a survey among the firms that revealed the rationale, budgeting and decision-making that supports both successful and less successful websites. The data is then combined to produce a recipe for a website that truly differentiates a firm effectively.
When considering how best to differentiate online, these four categories should each be considered as part of the equation. Each presents different opportunities to make an impression on the website visitor, but content is the area where firms have the most scope to develop — and an area where the span of our scoring system has to be extended each year to ensure that it matches the pace of change and detects sufficient airspace between firms to be able to identify a clear winner.
Looking at design and marketing first, although our findings reveal there is room for improvement, there is a limit to how much a firm can use these attributes to differentiate effectively. Top-scoring websites in these categories — including SJ Berwin, Lewis Silkin, Addleshaw Goddard, Linklaters, Clifford Chance and Maclay Murray & Spens — have all invested considerable energy (and expense) in refining their web presence to ensure information is presented in a conducive framework, and to communicate their brand values as clearly as possible.
With the help of the right design and branding expertise a firm can optimise its presentation to obtain the highest possible design and marketing scores. On the assumption that all our top 100 firms are able — and willing — to invest in sufficiently proficient design services, it certainly will not become any easier for a firm to create that airspace between itself and its rivals. Interestingly, our research shows that there is little correlation between design scores and size of firm — suggesting this category is a good leveller — but the larger firms do have the advantage when it comes to marketing clout.
Usability is another attribute that offers relatively little scope to differentiate, once good usability — and accessibility — standards have been imposed. Theoretically, there should be little to say about this category as substandard usability should never be an option, but firms do come unstuck, especially larger ones, as the scope of their websites grows. Among this year’s report sample only one of the larger firms, Herbert Smith, appears in the top five. Other top positions are held by the likes of Howard Kennedy, Wragge & Co, Mishcon de Reya and category winner Wedlake Bell, all of which are relatively small. Their dominance reflects the general size of these firms’ websites: smaller firms tend to have less to publish than larger firms, so will encounter fewer problems in organising information online in a coherent, accessible manner.
This leaves us with website content. This is where some of the most interesting developments are occurring and where firms can make a considerable impact, as demonstrated by high scorers Wragge & Co, DLA Piper, Addleshaw Goddard and Berwin Leighton Paisner. The obvious scope for development is in the use of new technology, but there is also potential in the scope of the website copy itself. To illustrate: where we added ‘sector’ information to our scoring system last year to differentiate those firms that were using their websites to cross-sell services and demonstrate specific expertise (backed up by testimonials), this year we have looked also for evidence of the firm’s financial good health as a further reassurance to visitors, especially potential clients. Furthermore, in recognition of the resurgence of interest in high net worth individuals, we looked for services targeted at this group. For the benefit of the wider community, we sought evidence of social and environmental policies and activities. A firm need not strive for a large website to make a difference, but demonstrating a deeper understanding of the needs of clients — and of the community in general — should pay dividends.
When focusing on the use of new technologies — podcasts, RSS, blogs, wikis, among others — significant steps are being taken. It is interesting to see that RSS is gaining a modest foothold. Podcasts are also beginning to emerge at some firms. However, other innovations that are taking off in the broader business world — such as the use of wikis in client-facing resources that build an organisation’s brand and reputation by demonstrating its authority and know-how — are almost non-existent in the legal sector.
This year’s Fast Fifty winner is the newly launched Addleshaw Goddard website. This site serves as an excellent illustration of a firm that has learned to differentiate itself very effectively in a fiercely competitive environment. Among other attributes, the site uses state-of-the-art technology to deliver content to its target audiences. The firm has learnt lessons from its established ‘CDC’ microsite, the design and architecture of which was thoroughly researched to ensure that its audience — senior in-house counsel — would make the best use of the site. The firm involved its clients at an early stage of development to establish how best they could be served by the site. An early discovery was that counsel are too pressed for time during the day to digest the firm’s legal updates, so these updates are delivered as podcasts for consumption while commuting. Having refined the CDC microsite, the firm applied the same look, feel and functionality to its ‘corporate’ website. As part of the Fast Fifty research we interviewed Steven Vincent, the architect of the new Addleshaw Goddard site, and his comments offer some fascinating insights into the firm’s online activities.
With the right planning, all firms can differentiate effectively online. It is a bit of a cliche to describe a firm’s website as its shop window but, as long-serving observers of the profession’s evolution online, we see an ever-growing awareness of the value of a good website. With structural changes to the profession in the air, driven in part by the impending Legal Services Act and the Carter reforms (we will publish findings on the impact of the former in July), firms will face ever-greater competition — and online presents a perfect weapon in the battle to differentiate. Going by Jack Trout’s maxim, that’s a better prospect than the alternative.
James Tuke is head of Intendance Research, a division of Intendance.
