Market Research

Each morning I read law.com's latest report about an AmLaw 100 firm's profits or revenue drops in 2009 over 2008. American Lawyer Media is building anticipation with this tactic as it leads up to its May 1, 2010 release of the AmLaw 100 financial report. The release of the AmLaw 100 firm names has been a banner day for Content Pilot since we started analyzing the Web sites of this body of firms based on "Ten Foundational Best Practices." Read more about our history with this initiative in past blog posts. If you want to access the last White Paper, you can download it here. And for a list of the 2010 Ten Foundational Best Practices, read my December 31, 2009 post.

Law firm Web sites have dramatically improved since I created the original Ten Foundational Best Practices list in 2005. The original research study, in which a qualified team first reviewed the then AmLaw 100 Web Sites, highlighted that America's top law firms were spending collective millions on their Web sites, yet were not providing good visitor experiences. We will conduct the research in 2010, again analyzing the AmLaw 100 Web sites - based on the 2010 Ten Foundational Best Practices below. Over the next few blog posts, I'll describe in detail each Foundational Best Practice and the attributes within it.

Acritas, a leading provider of research in the UK, Europe and the US, provided an insightful glimpse last night into what’s on the mind of global elite buyers of legal services. The final study will incorporate 1,000 interviews of an impressive cast of companies. The survey participants include public and private companies in all of the major rankings and stock indices including Forbes, Fortune 1000, FT 500 US, NASDAQ 100, NYSE Composite, AMEX 100, Dow 30 and the S&P 500. The study will be a cold bucket of water for many major law firms. But bottom line it is information any savvy marketer would want to have at their fingertips. It can help you understand your competitive set and know how your firm is perceived. The amount of data that can be drilled down and analyzed is impressive.