ALMResearchBlog

Real Lawyers Have Firm Profiles at LinkedIn

Kevin O’Keefe of the Real Lawyers Have Blogs blog reports that the largest law firms all have expanding firm profiles at LinkedIn. LinkedIn, “the largest and most popular professional social network,” has detailed firm profiles on each of the largest law firms in the country, which include a firm synopsis; career path of lawyers before joining the firm; career path of lawyers before joining the firm; who law firm employees are most connected to; new hires; recent promotions and position changes; popular firm member profiles; BusinessWeek profile and related news; top locations of firm; top schools lawyers graduated from; median age; and gender breakdown.

O’Keefe provides links to the LinkedIn law firm profiles for the top 20 Am Law 100 firms, starting with Skadden and ending with Gibson Dunn, as well as the number of their LinkedIn members with the LinkedIn network.

Allen & Overy Has Best Law Firm Website, According to Poll

London based “magic circle” firm Allen & Overy is the U.K. law firm with the website most likely to win business, according to the 7^th annual Intendance Fast 50 survey and reported recently by Legal Week. The study rates the websites of the 50 fastest-growing U.K. law firms on criteria including content, usability, design and marketing potential. Nabarro topped the marketing category for its strong branding, while Mishcon de Reya was deemed to have the most user-friendly website, allowing users to access many different types of information from a single page. Freeth Cartwright offered the most depth of content, while A&O’s site was judged to have the best design as well as claiming top spot overall

2008 Webby Awards

And the winners of the “Oscars of the Internet” in the Law category are Out-Law.com (“IT and e-commerce by the international law firm Pinsent Masons”) for the Webby Award, and ABA Journal for the People’s Voice Award.

Awards: Best Legal Web Site of 2008 Competition

As noted by Joe Hodnicki on the Law Librarian Blog, the Web Marketing Association is calling for entries for its 12th annual international WebAward Competition for websites. The Association will once again name the Best Legal Website of 2008.

The WebAwards is "the standards-defining competition that sets benchmarks for 96 industries," including legal web sites, based on the seven criteria of a successful website. The deadline for legal websites to enter to be judged is May 31, 2008. To access details and an entry form, click here.

Awards: How Bingham Won 11 Awards for Its Branding Campaign

This was an interesting post on Larry Bodine’s Law Marketing Blog, reviewing Bingham McCutchen’s almost-sweep in the 2008 LMA  Your Honor Awards. Bingham earned first place awards for its 2007 branding identify and advertising, and second place recognition for its web site design, and had earlier in the year secured nine regional LMA awards. Among the many winners was Bingham’s Bear and Baby ad, as Bodine notes, which was also named Law Firm Ad of the Year by The Wall Street Journal Law Blog and was featured on Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report,” with host Stephen Colbert reiterating his well-known fear of bears and calling Bingham “the No. 2 threat to America.”

Our Web Site: New Design, New Features

It is my pleasure to announce to you the launch of the newly designed ALM Research Online website. The substance of the site, including our reports, search functions, and continuously updated law firm data, will be the same or even better than when you last visited. The design however, has been changed with a mind towards a fresher, cleaner look and a more user friendly experience. Some new functionality has been added including the ability to download past years’ surveys directly from the site. You'll no longer need to call and request them--unless you'd just like to chat.

I'd also like to encourage you to take advantage of some of the enhancements added within the last six months, including:

• Associate salary spreadsheet updated frequently.
• Staffing Notes spreadsheet to trace branch office openings and closings and significant staffing shifts.
• Corporate representation and lateral partner data continue to be collected from an ever-expanding universe of sources.

The new homepage includes a direct link to Law.com Quest--our newly launched search engine, which targets only legal content. And coming soon: the Legal Week 50-from our new partners across the pond at Legal Week. This relationship will continue to give our database a more global perspective moving forward.

I'll be scheduling webinars to go through the new site, so stay tuned. Feel free to email me: clowry@alm.com.

2008 Legal Technology Trends

If you missed Legal Tech in New York last month, Geoffrey G. Gussis has posted on the In-House Blog links to reviews of the conference, and genres of tools, from e-discovery to automated document review.

Related products available via the ALM Research Store include the 2007 In-House Tech Survey, the 2007 AmLaw Tech Survey (law firms), and the Legal Technology Assessment Study, which can be purchased either whole or in parts: Case Management, Client Relationship Management, Document Management, Electronic Discovery, and Online Research.

Law Schools: Minority Enrollment is Down

According to this report in National Law Journal, a Web site created by Columbia Law School and the Society of American Law Teachers (SALT), has found that enrollment of blacks and Mexican-Americans has fallen by 8.65 in the past 15 years. The decline has occurred as applications to law schools among those two groups have remained constant, the report says. The statistics, compiled from information provided by the Law School Admission Council, dispute the notion that the low enrollment numbers among blacks and Mexican-Americans are due to dwindling applications from those groups. Instead, Columbia and SALT say that as schools continue to revere U.S. News & World Report rankings and anti-affirmative action initiatives predicted to be on the ballot in five states in November, it appears that the situation may only worsen. "It's not a pipeline problem," a Columbia professor who helped to create the Web site was quoted as saying.

LTN Awards Presented at Legal Tech

As reported by Monica Bay on her Common Scold Blog, Law Technology News held its fifth annual awards program February 6th during Legal Tech in New York, and announced the winners of the LTN awards. In the Vendor category, LexisNexis took four awards and CT Summation took three. The Law Firm and Legal Department award winners included John Sroka of Duane Morris, IT Director of the Year, and Goodwin Procter's iStaff system, for Most Innovative Use of Technology by a Law Firm.

Top 5 Legal Websites of 2007--For Making News

Bob Ambrogi, writing for Legal Technology News, announced the five Web sites that are "not necessarily the best or the worst, but the ones that most altered the online legal landscape" this past year.” They are Avvo , Public Resource, AltLaw, the ABA Journal, and Justia . Be sure to read Ambrogi’s descriptions of why each of these sites was singled out.