The IMA gets lots of visitors from Oz. I look forward to a return visit some day. For now, I keep my trips “virtual” through the web. It was nice to get a strong IMA nomination from a firm that is not focused on immigration in Australia. In the U.S., I’ve often felt that niche family law practices have failed to fully embrace the power of the Internet. Take a lesson. You can pay with a credit card online here. They have 40 information sheets. The design is balanced. Check out the ease-of-use in the navigation. Simple left-side, plus the top-right “friendly icons” and keyword search. A great combo of resource, promotion and virtual law office.
IMA loves the land down under, ever since Scott Mooney and Larry Gordon, then of Thomson Asia Pacific invited me to show internet marketing to their sales and management troops and visit some of the country’s finest law firms. The company even stole the IMA concept and initiated IMA-like awards. Of course, you can not sell products to firms and present real awards. But, it is a noble effort. AAR is one of their customers and winner of an award. It is a strong web site and certainly deserving. Especially impressive was the updating of information, the super-strong navigability and the unique Counsel’s Radaar, a weekly round-up of the latest news relevant to corporate counsel. Good show.
Is there a better marketed law firm in China that Lehman Lee? It seems like I see or hear about this firm all the time. Of course, I know the firm as lehmanlaw.com. They have an alliance with Dykema (saw it on that firm’s web site). The new site is improved, although I sort of miss the big gates. Lots of newsletters to subscribe to. Stan Abrams’ China Blawg. Everything you need to know about law in China. After surfing through each section, I was full. But, two minutes later, I was ready to look some more.
While the site is generally the same as a year ago, I liked it better this time around. This might mean I am in a better mood than on review day ‘03, or a recent spat of so-so sites has made this look more interesting. What-ever. One of the site mantas is “see things differently.” So, that must be it. The bottom line is that it proves to be a good tool, allowing the end-user to find his or her country and the accompanying site. Or log-in to an array of categories that range from extranets to regulatory requirements.
CC continues to handle the multi-language, multi-national, multi-lawyer thing well. When it comes to building these sites, you can get past the language and cultural barriers, but getting past all those lawyers is another story altogether. In the interest of world peace, the firm has kept the main site simple and sent specialties off to an array of “online services” that allow for more creativity and depth. They do “keep it simple stupid” and keep it up to date as well.
