Into the vortex

The business development viewpoint

Do the Herbert Smith finders and minders use the web to the same extent as the French ' non' lobby did recently in the European Union Constitution referendum? An unfair comparison perhaps, however, the site could be used more fully to support business development.

Initial impression http://www.herbertsmith.com/Vortex.htm

'Vortex' by Diego Ferrari dominates the homepage in an impressive way. Certainly it draws your eye to the centre and almost pulls you into the site.

With your attention at a heightened level, your interest is captured with a link on the homepage to news of a prestigious win as Western Europe projects/energy law firm of the year.

The news item is well written in business development terms. Cross-reference links on the right hand side continue your journey, at which point you might be ready to take some form of action. However, the top link, 'Forthcoming events', takes you to a page with the unexpected words "There are no forthcoming events listed at this time". A surprise letdown. Indeed, looking around the site it does appear that there are no events at Herbert Smith.

For those using the simple yet elegant main navigation, clicking on 'About us' provides a nononsense description of the firm and admirably highlights performance validations in the form of awards using images and links.

Partner and practice validation

A user's path through the site centred on 'Practice areas' and 'Industry sectors' is productive. The 'Services' page provides a full listing, with each service covering 'Overview', 'Experience', 'People', 'News' and 'Publications', where available. Some relevant services are listed, providing the basis for cross-selling. The number of steps could have been reduced from three to two through different navigation.

Paul Griffin can also be pleased that as a corporate partner, the site provides him with substantive validation were he to provide a link to his bio page to a prospect, mention his page in a meeting or his name was used in Google. The presentation of the bio is presented in a semi-formal way, with a classic black and white 'working mode' photo, along with his direct telephone and email address, plus a background description and credentials. The links to his 'Practice areas' and 'Industry sectors' are clear.

Beyond this though, Griffin is ring-fenced on the site. Were a site visitor to start with his bio page you would not know he is the contact partner for the recent key news item on the firm's recent projects/ energy award highlighted on the homepage. So an opportunity to understand his industry prominence and presence within the firm has been missed; indeed this information cannot even be found using the site search.

Trying to locate Griffin by office is also challenging and this reflects an overall approach to navigation on the site which ring fences partners, news, locations and other areas. This can be solved through sales oriented architecture, user path analysis and other techniques.

Campaign management

News items are well written with brief, professional and validation information included. The 'Notes to editors' extends content to other deals and information for that service area. Contact details are presented for the contact partner, along with business development staff as a backup. A link to the contact partner bio would encourage readers to make contact.

The news topics cover bluechip, government, international and deals in excess of £50m; presumably, reinforcing the firm's targeted client profile, with the number of news items being: May (four items); April (10 items); March (10 items); February (four items); and January (eight items).

As noted above the site structure lends itself to campaigns around practice areas and the firm rather than around partners or other initiatives.

There is no subscription area for updates which is curious. There are references in the text of publications with contact e-mail addresses and perhaps this is handled manually. Creating an online network to distribute news alerts and updates to clients and prospects is a key web-based tool and making this easy for site visitors would assist.

Collaborative working

There is no clear indication of how the firm works with clients on the site. This relates to two areas.

First it is not apparent to prospects how the working relationship with Paul Griffin and other lawyers in the firm would operate - beyond the visions and values statement. Providing this information can provide that important stepping stone towards becoming a client.

Second, communication of documents and information between clients and advisers behind a secure login has become important to many larger clients. It may well be that the firm uses these facilities but this is not apparent from the website.

The extensive use of the phrases 'we' and 'our' throughout the site could be rewritten in the vein of 'you' and 'your'.

Building brand value

From the outset, with its impressive entry page, a brand is implied. However, as you progress through the site it is less clear what the firm's brand or 'promise' is, beyond performance. Perhaps that is enough, but it does not distinguish it from its illustrious competitors within the magic circle who also demand and deliver performance. Understanding more about how the firm works you and communicating client savvy relation-ship management would take the firm forward.

While innovation is referred to the 'Vision and values' page, evidence of this resides within the litigation pages on the site, such as its announcement of being the first UK law firm to establish a dedicated advocacy unit.

The nicely presented signature logo in the bottom left of all pages 'Herbert Smith in Association with Gleiss and Stibbe' signals a 'best friends' and best quality international presence, although not a global presence. If the logo were linked to the impressively laid out 'Locations' page, or even better, was represented on the homepage similar to the Clifford Chance approach it would improve the firm's communication of its international presence.

The highlighted quote in the corporate page indicates the firm positions itself at the edge of magic circle and the site reinforces this viewed from a business development perspective:

"The firm remains the preferred destination for clients who appreciate top magic circle service and depth but not the heart-stopping high fees."

Scores:
Initial impression 75%
Partner and practice validation 72%
Complements campaign management 62%

Complements collaborative working - Builds brand value in legal marketplace 60% Steven Vincent is a business development consultant specialising in the legal marketplace.

THE CONSULTANTS VIEWPOINT

Coming sixth overall amongst the websites reviewed in this column to date, Herbert Smith does have some catching up to do if it wishes to challenge its peers. For those charting scores to date: the website achieved a total score of 76.6% overall. In individual categories the website scored 79.4% for content (sixth place), 70.3% for usability (fourth place) and 80.0% for design (sixth place).

Herbert Smith's website content does satisfy most of our fundamental criteria, such as a brief introduction to the firm, dedicated pages for its services and partners, extensive careers and contact information and upto-date news items and publications. However, offsetting these strengths, the website does lack other useful features, for example, an enquiry form to encourage general communication and a downloadable corporate brochure that visitors can 'take away. Multi-lingual content on its own website, in addition to that on its alliance partners' websites, may be considered superfluous, but even limited inclusion would enhance the website. Furthermore, apart from an Alumni login and a subscription panel, no personalised content appears to be available. To address this, an extranet facility would be an obvious addition and would add value to existing client services.

As with previous websites audited, usability is also this website's weakest area and although being ahead of both Freshfields and Slaughter and May, there are a few fundamental criteria that should be reviewed. Scrolling up-down is excessive in places and up to four clicks are required to navigate between some pages. Dynamic menus would alleviate the latter, as well as providing visitors with a quicker overview of sub options. We also notice that the meta data on the home page appears to be incomplete, which could hinder search engine ranking. Similarly, a check on some accessibility-related issues suggests that the website is not yet compliant with the WAI/W3C guidelines.

The website's design is clean and uncluttered, verging on the minimalistic. The homepage could tell us more about the firm to draw us in, although the top-level navigation and news links are clearly visible. The addition of more images as appropriate would give the website more life, some of which could vary automatically to give the site some dynamism. Despite the ubiquity of the software, the website was penalised for relying solely on Adobe Acrobat Reader (PDF). Any third party software that is not a standard component of a browser can cause website visitors problems as they may need to download the software before being able to access the website fully. Those users behind a security firewall may be prevented from downloading such software and, in some cases, this can severely limit the use of a website. Thus we recommend a Word version of each document be offered as an alternative.

Please note, as always, that for the purposes of this review we have not assessed the password-protected content. Websites were viewed on a resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels, reflecting the increasing popularity of higher resolution screens.

James Tuke is a director and Mary-Ann Cabiao is a sales and marketing assistant at Intendance.