FindLaw Reviews: Read this before choosing FindLaw (2023)

What is FindLaw?

FindLaw is a legal marketing firm founded in 1995 and owned by Thomson Reuters. They have one of the largest legal directories on the web and offer website design and other legal marketing services (like SEO, content development, etc.).

What services do they provide?

FindLaw offers a fairly wide range of services, but we'll focus on the most well-known.

FindLaw Lawyer Directory

This listing has a large inbound link profile and listings inFindLaw directorytend to rank well organically. In my experience, this is the most enticing and valuable product FindLaw offers. However, proper use of their directory requires a client to do their due diligence and ensure the listing gets traffic, ranks well in organic search, and ranks near the top (to justify the investment and clicks). Asattorney directoriesgo, theirs is very competitive and among the best available.

In some regions and job areas, I've seen FindLaw perform very well: the directory page ranks well for direct job area searches and gets a decent amount of organic traffic. On other occasions, I've performed competitive analysis for a FindLaw URL that isn't ranking as well as you might expect. While it can get traffic, the likelihood of converting a visitor into a customer isn't as high.

In every single situation where I have requested information for a sponsored directory listing, I have never received the analytics before receiving the offer. It is imperative that you request analysis and conduct your own competitive analysis to evaluate the investment. This is crucial because (as we'll discuss) FindLaw makes it difficult to break contracts. So you don't want to commit long-term to something that doesn't generate ROI, but this is especially true when it also requires a restrictive agreement.

Numerically speaking, you can spend $150 per click on “car crash attorney” on Google AdWords. If you're paying $1000/month for a FindLaw car accident attorney list that gets 20 clicks per month, then a FindLaw directory seems like a more sensible investment ($50 per click). However, note the following: AdWords allows you to bid on the bidsExactlyphrases you want. With FindLaw, bid for organic position and placement (cast a wide net, if you will, rather than precision strike with AdWords).

Here is a listing that may be worthwhile depending on the price:

Why? It ranks incredibly well for direct intentPersonal Injury SEO(e.g. "personal injury attorney", "personal injury attorney", etc.) phrases. This listing could generate conversions so depending on the price this could be a worthwhile investment.

On the other hand, here is an example of a listing where the analytics can be misleading:

Why? While this listing may include historical traffic analysis, their current rankings for direct intent phrases are relatively poor (on the second page at best). This is generally risky, but depending on the price, it can be very risky.

FindLaw Directory and SEO

One thing to consider is that you are making an investment for a premium profile (the last offer I received was $299/month) with the intention of doing this to help improve the profileSEO for your website(as opposed to a lead generation source) is always an option. You can get many of the benefits of a FindLaw profile from the backlink alone as it is a DR (Domain Rating) 90 niche link and has tremendous authority.

Website design

Overall, FindLaw websites tend to be very cookie-free, a complaint that applies to their peers as welljustice. That means they have a consistent design aesthetic and they apply it broadly to their entire client base; If you see enough FindLaw websites, you'll find that they all look the same to some degree.

That said, I won't blame you if you like their designs. After all, this is a completely subjective thing. FindLaw websites are like a Prius: they are not designed for Flash and flair, but for functionality and efficiency. There's nothing wrong with that per se, but it makes it extraordinarily difficult to stand out. Just as a Prius tends to blend in with the traffic around it, a FindLaw website won't make waves when it comes to its overall "curb appeal."

Now let's move on to the legitimately bad parts of FindLaw's website design:

First of all, their websites are based on a proprietary CMS (Content Management System). This means it isimpossibleso that you can make your own changes (both as a customer and afterwards). You are essentiallyhandcuff youto their platform. In fact, one of our legal marketing peers (Konrad together) even has a "Jailbreak Guide” for escaping FindLaw.

Second, value judgments about aesthetics aside, the FindLaw sites I've seen/analyzed consistently lacked proper SEO optimizations.

Marketing Services

In my experience, their marketing services to attorneys are abysmal, to put it mildly. Your primary form of link building is basic directory listings. The content is outdated and thin, and lacks SEO best practices. Customer support is frequently slow based on my first hand experience with their marketing team.

An explanation of why I had this experience can be found at GlassDoor. Thereview(am 24. May 2019,of acurrent Employees, not less) says:

And here isanother goofy(this time from a former employee, in December 2017):

And here's another short oneFindlaw Reviewfrom a former employee:

Do you own your website and its content?

Technically, you own your website and content. However, I have to mention that the website is built on the proprietary CMS. You own something that only FindLaw can update. It's like owning a house but not the land it's built on.

The same was said about the content. I have encountered many situations where FindLaw kept the rights to website content. I will not go into detail about the ins and outs of a FindLaw contract, as another legal marketing colleague,Gyi Tsakalakis, did greatHere.

FindLaw's customer agreement is very vague, stating:

8.1 Property. The parties agree that between Subscriber and West (i) the
Service Interface, West Materials, West Content and any improvements thereto
created under this Agreement are the exclusive property of West, and (ii) the
The content is the exclusive property of the subscriber. During the term of this
Agreement and thereafter neither party will use, disclose or provide to anyone
third party the property of the other party, except as expressly provided in this Agreement
Agreement or as necessary for the parties to perform their obligations or
exercise or enforce their rights hereunder.

In short, this seems to indicate that while the text itself is owned by the client, the means of updating or changing that text is owned by FindLaw. Essentially, you own the front end, but FindLaw owns the back end. They own the car, but they own the keys.

To be fair, there are some website elements that are not included in the files that FindLaw provides to its clients who have broken up. FindLaw is unable to provide access to these files due to ownership or license agreements. This includes things like WordPress themes, plugin files, and licenses used for a website's features and functionality.

We asked 30 lawyers what they like best and dislike about FindLaw's legal marketing

All of this is based on both our personal experience of FindLaw (both first hand and on behalf of clients) and that of current/former employees. To provide a broader view, we conducted a survey of 30 lawyers.

Note: While this article purports to show the opinions of 30, we only show 29. We received responses from 30 attorneys, but one requested a retraction due to their pending lawsuit against FindLaw.

It's worth noting that even this summary cannot be taken as completely neutral: most of the lawyers who spoke to us have FindLaw sites. We wanted to be sure that the opinions we solicited were from attorneys who were (at any given time) active users of FindLaw legal marketing solutions. This is the only way we can be sure that we are collecting the authentic views of real FindLaw users.

Is it worth it?

tl;dr: No.

The FindLaw directory still ranks incredibly well, so a sponsored directory can be a viable option in many cases. However, I would strongly recommend you to choose another provider for website design or ongoing marketing solutions that are of interest to you. Also a revolving door of representatives, so no personal relationship and personal accountability.

What services would you like FindLaw to provide?

Findlaw offers almost everything I can think of. I just wish there was some accountability between the optimization staff and the company. Maybe an incentive program to give the sales reps a reason to do better for customers instead of making us feel like one of many getting the same product.

FindLaw Review (1-5):2

Is it worth it?

tl;dr: No.

The FindLaw directory still ranks incredibly well, so a sponsored directory can be a viable option in many cases. However, I would strongly recommend you to choose another provider for website design or ongoing marketing solutions.