Top firms should worry about Web

SURVEY: many leading law firms unrecognised by search engines

Few top law firms are making effective use of their Web sites and turning the expense of maintaining them into real business, the Legal IT Forum 2001, organised by the Law Society's law management section, was told last week.Former Eversheds managing partner Peter Scott, now a director of Horwath Consulting, told delegates in Birmingham that a survey his company conducted on how effectively 30 top law firms are using their Web sites found all had significant room for improvement.

The firms surveyed, consisting of the top 25 UK firms by turnover and the top five US firms with offices in London, were assessed against six criteria: marketing of the firm, service delivery to the client, employee recruitment, customer relationship management, brand prominence, and whether the site created a centre of expertise and knowledge.While the results of the survey suggested that the sites could be enhanced in all six categories, Mr Scott said service delivery and customer relationship management were being neglected.

Only 6% of sites offered e-procurement of services on-line, while 4% featured opinion polling about legal issues - to encourage site interactivity - and just over a quarter offered a Web site feedback questionnaire.Brand prominence was measured by entering the firms' names into 15 of the most popular search engines and seeing whether their Web sites featured in the top six search results.

Only one firm's site featured at the top of 12 or more search engines' results, with four Web sites featuring in three or fewer.The results also showed there was little difference between the standard of the US and UK firms' sites.Mr Scott said the company is planning to repeat the survey later this year.

'Hopefully, all the sites we looked at will have moved on by now - if they haven't, then there is a problem,' he said.

'Having a bad Web site is worse than not having one at all.'LINKS: www.horwathcw.com/consultingAndrew Towler