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How hard it is to locate a partner with a specialty by searching the internet

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In the future, an efficient method to locate counsel for some specialty might be an internet search. With the advanced capabilities now available on various search engines, and with the advent of law-focused portals (See my post of April 1, 2007 on general law portals.), a general counsel might by-pass such alternatives as directories (See my post of Jan. 25, 2008 on four Martindale-Hubble capabilities.), rating systems (See my post of Feb. 7, 2007 on several of these.), associations (See my posts of May 30, 2005; and Dec. 19, 2005 about associations and networks of law firms), and referrals (See my post of Aug. 5, 2007 as to international firms.). Not yet, however. The chaff overwhelms the wheat.

To prove the point, I tried “Des Moines environmental lawyer with more than 15 years experience.” I ran that search on Jan. 26th and had 214,000 hits on Yahoo!; 92,600 on MSN; and 35,900 on Google. We have a long way to go before internet searching helps us find lawyers at that level of specificity.