Twenty prominent law firm’s web sites judged on effectiveness

For law department lawyers who take the time to forage on the web sites of large US law firms, the pickings can be priceless. Thus, the Bloom Group has done law departments a service when it evaluated 20 prominent firms based on their site’s usefulness of organization for potential clients and depth of content. The review, conducted from Dec. 2005 to March 2006 is presented in Consulting, July/Aug. 2006 at 37. The Bloom Group gave each site it reviewed ratings of 0 to 5 on 65 criteria, so the maximum number of points any law firm could achieve was 325. The best site barely achieved a 50 percent rating.

Here are the top five and the bottom five, with their point totals: Wilmer Hale (164), White & Case (159), Paul Weiss (153), Arnold & Porter (153), and Shearman & Sterling (143).

The lowest rating five, those with the poorest organization and least useful material, were Covington & Burling (107), Sidley & Austin (105), Davis Polk (98), Williams & Connolly (74), Cravath Swaine (69) and, blush – Wachtell Lipton (41).