The Survey of Law Firm Website Management Practices, 2016 Edition

The study present data from 27 predominantly major law firms mostly from the USA but also Canada and the UK about how they are developing and managing their websites. The mean number of employees of the firms sampled was 485. The study gives detailed information on staffing, technology, website visitor statistics, budgets, major website redevelopment projects, use of freelancers and consultants, promotional strategy, uses of social media, and organization of law firm committees to run the website. Other areas covered include policies on outsourcing, SEO development, search interface redesign, site usability studies, ease of website revisions, clearances for posting on the site, and other areas of interest to administrators, marketers, senior partners and others in law firm management, technology development and marketing. Data is broken out by law firm size and by the type of client base of the law firms in the sample. Just a few of the 95 page report’s many findings are that: The largest firms have as many as five FTE positions devoted to the website, while the minimum reported was 10 percent of one FTE for a firm with less than 25 attorneys. Overall, the average was 2 FTE positions. A little over half of firms sampled are using YouTube. Firms serving big business clients with more than $250 million+ in revenues had a 73 per cent usage rate compared to 50 per cent for firms serving individuals and small business. About one-third of firms included client testimonials on their websites, while another third were thinking of adding them soon. Small to medium-sized firms were more likely to have or express interest in testimonials. Mean aggregate spending over the past three years for outside help on websites and social media was $43,000.