10 best AmLaw 100 web sites?

Larry Bodine points out a $1200 white paper identifying The 10 Best AmLaw 100 Web Sites. The research was purportedly conducted by a ‘credentialed group of legal marketing, design, Web industry and information technology (IT) professionals.’

One of the criteria was search optimization, ‘Have the firms taken the basic steps necessary to maximize their chances of being found by the most popular search engines?’ I took a look at the Websites with a view as to what was done for basic search optimization. The SEO work was to fair to poor. In some cases, amateurish.

At a time when 70% of business execs and in-house counsel do online research during the law firm hiring process, often looking by area of law or locale, as opposed to a lawyer’s name, it’s shocking that firms do not make sure their websites can be found on the net. But if the firms are relying on folks like the ‘credentialed group’ who did this report, maybe we should not be surprised.