In NYC, a 40-attorney firm doing IP is considered a boutique. One of the things that the Frommer site needs to accomplish is to highlight the coziness of the smaller firm with the expertise of the larger firm neighbors. As you might expect, the best place to accomplish that is on the web site. And the site mirrors the firm’s size, location and practice group in personality and expected presence.
In doing these 25 reviews, I go through a long, long list of submissions and nominations. At first glance, I saw the home page and was ready to move on. Luckily, I reminded myself that design is only one of the rating categories. Get beyond the look and there is good “trial lawyer experience” presented in credential form. The “case history” and “media article” databases stand out. Just remember, the look and feel of the site turns some off. A little redesign might be in order.
Well-crafted, good detail, with a look and flow that gets away from the cookie-cutter look that plagues most sites. Accentuating the foreign language components is key. Lots of publications, events, seminars and related materials. It was a little goofy having the attorney bio page with one add-on—the marketing director bio. Firms should often provide contact info and some credentials for non-lawyers, but how about the firm admin or the accounting dude?
Good credentials and skills with some irreverance. Boy, I wonder why IMA likes that formula. The "After Hours" section was obviously different. If you took the time to surf through section by section, you will find a lot of good things. The navigation, though, was terrible. I literally got lost a few times and had to start back with the original URL. That is not good. The overall look is clever, but the usability is not there. This is a site example where a skilled developer could probably spend a day reworking the same materials and sections into something with much greater use.
Hey, it is not Visalaw.com, it is bccvisalaw.com from the law offices of Bobby Chung. A display of the small firm targeting the immigration law practice. A good little mix of credentials, content and handy online tools like forms, pay by credit card, etc. I especially like the way the firm has put decent energy into different audiences and different parts of the site. I have friends trying to do the same thing in Philadelphia, but simply don’t “get it”. It takes a few bucks and some elbow grease to win in this market.
