Website review

This month we compare and contrast the two main client review legal directories online - two websites with very similar propositions, and both fiercely proclaiming that you cannot buy your way into their pages.

The Legal 500

www.legal500.com

It is not clear to me from browsing this site why the guide is called the Legal 500. Presumably, at one point it was (at least notionally) a guide to the top 500 lawyers or law firms in the country? In any event there are many more than 500 lawyers featured on this directory’s website.

It is the 2008 version of the directory which is available online, so the information and reviews are right up to date. Clicking on “UK Legal 500” and then “Scotland” takes the visitor to an overview of the legal market here. Rather too large a task to be adequately completed in a few short paragraphs, one might have thought? Not at all – beginning with a rundown of what it calls the “big four” regional heavyweights, the site romps through some of Scotland’s larger law firms, distributing plaudits in just over 500 words.

The purpose of the site is to help potential clients find the best practices and practitioners in their fields. So, clicking on “private client” then “charities”, for example, gives the top law firms ranked from levels 1-6, and a brief narrative on their accomplishments, highlighting notable clients and complex or high-profile transactions. Individuals who shine within the field are singled out alongside their firms with, from time to time, a quote from an anonymous client.

There are similarly collated results for advocates, which is very handy when deciding whom to instruct in a particular area of law.

I found the process of searching for lawyers in particular fields to be a very user friendly one, and the results returned are very easy to digest, coming as they do in bite sized pieces. In fact, for a website with such a large number of entries (there are 11 regions, plus London in the UK Legal 500 alone, and a further 3 Legal 500s for other areas of the world) it is incredibly well organised and very simple to locate the information you are looking for.

In addition to the reviews and profiles (which are paid for), there is a regular feed of law firm generated press releases and legal developments. The former are mostly the usual tiresome reports of deals and appointments, whereas the legal developments are short, usually interesting and informative updates on recent developments in any one of five specified areas of law. The combined effect is a much slower version of twitter for commercial law firms.

Chambers UK

www.chambersandpartners.com/uk

While organised along broadly similar lines to the Legal 500, Chambers’ website is subtly different in some important ways (and some not so important). Again the most up-to-date version of Chambers is available online. Although it’s branded 2009, it is in fact the edition which was published at the end of 2008 – much like The Broons Annual in that respect.

The most obvious difference you will notice is that while the Legal 500 invites the user to “browse” to the practice area of their choice, Chambers insists that you instead “search” for it.

I am not sure that it makes any difference whatever. If you’ve a personal preference, fine – but both systems are very easy to operate.

The site seems to have more sub-categories by which entries are classified, which I am sure comes in handy. It makes sense that a potential client will want to discriminate (for example) between employment law firms who specialise in representing claimants and those who do mainly respondent work. The results also seem to provide more distinction between firm and lawyer, telling the user about the grade 1 lawyer who works in a grade 3 firm, and so on.

The Chambers website allows you to search directly for a solicitor or advocate or law firm, and from there tells you in which areas they are recommended. This is a very useful feature and it can be quite interesting to check out colleagues

or friends – or perhaps the opposing solicitor or counsel in that big case you’re running? There did not appear to be an equivalent feature in the Legal 500 site.

Regrettably, the student guide applies only in England & Wales – including their law firm guide for trainees which promises to “lift the lid on 150 firms… the product of many hundreds of confidential phone interviews with trainees”. Surely an equivalent in Scotland cannot be far away?

Overall there really is very little to choose between the two sites. If you are mainly looking for commercial practices, Legal 500 may have the edge, but otherwise I’d go with Chambers first.