If you look at a lot of personal injury websites like I do, you will notice that attorneys will often promote their membership in exclusive legal societies or legal awards with badges.
Some of these organizations like Million Dollar Advocates, Super Lawyers and Best Lawyers are well respected and feature a highly competitive application process. Acceptance to these elite groups usually involve some level of peer review and proven performance in the courtroom. But, in many other cases these organizations are little more than a money making exercise, where after an attorney pays for a listing, their exclusive membership allows them to feature an impressive looking badge on their site, that says they are one of the top attorneys in the country. The proliferation of these “faux” legal awards and ranking agencies have made it harder for the average consumer to properly evaluate attorneys.
One badge that definitely should carry some weight is the Inner Circle of Advocates. Started in 1972, the Inner Circle features just 100 plaintiff attorneys in the entire Country. Besides a peer reviewed selection system, the minimum threshold for membership is at least 3 verdicts of at least $1 million, or one verdict that was in excess of $10 million, with the most recent verdict having been within the past 5 years. The result is a truly amazing list of personal injury lawyers throughout the United States. To a person, every member is an incredible trial lawyer with the experience and resources to take on the largest of cases. Another commonality of these firms is their reticence to do traditional lawyer advertising. You will not see these firms on Billboards, Bus Stops, or on loud TV commercials. These firms get the vast majority of their cases from other attorneys. And unlike many of the big advertisers, where there is a constant pressure to settle cases in order to fund their advertising, real trial lawyers have the resources and acumen to actually go to trial and ask for justice. Another advantage of using a proven trial lawyer is that they will almost always get higher settlements if the case does not go to trial. This is because insurance companies know these firms are not afraid of trial and they know they have the resources to go the distance and win.
It is for these reasons I passionately believe that if someone is catastrophically injured and looking for help they should be able to find a truly great trial lawyer online.
Inner Circle Websites
For many Inner Circle Members, having a website that is commensurate with their reputation is important. Our research indicates the average person looking for a lawyer will look at 5 websites before making a decision to call a particular attorney. Therefore, we feel its essential to not only be on the first page of Google results, but to STAND out from your competitors with an incredible design. This is particularly important for great trial lawyers. In the last year, 14 Inner Circle firms launched new web designs.
In the last 12 months Scorpion redesigned several of their Inner Circle client websites, including McClellan Law Firm, Bostwick & Peterson and Stewart Tilghman Fox Bianchi & Cain. They also added some new Inner Circle clients with beautiful new websites for Spohrer Dodd, Cullan & Cullan and Edwards & Kirby. Scorpion builds beautiful websites with lots of interactive features.
iLawyermarketing launched 4 new sites for Inner Circle Members; Clifford Law moved over from FindLaw while Paulson Coletti (above) and Cannon Dunphy came to us from Scorpion. These sites do a great job of showcasing their results, with custom layouts for their result pages. For example check out how we showcase the amazing results for Cannon Dunphy.
Other Inner Circle firms redesigning their site in the last year
Crowe & Mulvey – Boston, MA
McKeen & Associates – Detroit, MI
Habush Habush & Rottier – Milwaukee, WI
Greene Broillet & Wheeler – Los Angeles, CA
Of the 100 firms in the Inner Circle, Scorpion Design is by far the leader with 15 sites and FindLaw is a close 2nd with 10 websites. My company, iLawyermarketing is honored to represent 6 firms in the Inner Circle:
ARC and the Inner Circle
So which Inner Circle firms are doing the best job being visible to the searching public? One way I evaluate ranking performance between firms and SEO companies is through the Average Rank Consistency Score or (ARC). The ARC is simply a ranking snapshot of 8 important keywords, that just about every serious plaintiffs attorney would care about.
In the chart below, the numbers going Left to Right correlate to the page of Google results I found the site on for the following keywords: (Geo+ Personal Injury Lawyer, Geo+ Car Accident Lawyer, Geo+ Injury Attorney, Geo+ Motorcycle Accident Lawyer, Geo+ Truck Accident Lawyer, Geo+ Wrongful Death Lawyer, Accident Attorney Geo+ and Geo+ Brain Injury Lawyer) . A score of 0.5 signifies the fact that the site came up in the top 5 of the organic search results. A score of 11 means that the site did not come up in the top 10 pages of ranking results. The bolded number to the right is the ARC score, which is a weighted average of the 8 rankings. The lower the ARC the better. *The rankings below are a snapshot of rankings taken on 2/28/2019 .
Tier 1
One of the ways the ARC is useful is the ability to compare firms and companies across similar markets. Tier 1 markets are hyper competitive markets, usually with at least 150-200 focused personal injury firms in that market. *For each firm I analyzed the rankings for the primary geo the firm is targeting. For example Chris Searcy’s site is clearly targeting “Florida” versus West Palm Beach. In some cases, I included secondary markets that the firm was targeting. For example Panish Shea is clearly targeting Los Angeles, Orange County and recently launched an office in Las Vegas after their ground breaking $160,000,000 verdict.
You can see that Mike Kelly’s site is in the top 5 organic results for 7 of the 8 terms, which actually gives him the best ARC score in all of San Francisco. Special kudos goes to Ben Rubinowitz and Brian Panish. Their respective websites dominate the two most competitive markets for PI in the Country – New York and Los Angeles.
Tier 2 Markets:
Tier 3 Markets
These are markets where firm’s are competing with at least 50 focused PI sites. These are still highly competitive markets when it comes to SEO. 
*I did not include Inner Circle Members who focus on Med Mal or Bad Faith Insurance. I also did not include Tier 4 or Tier 5 results here.
Summary:
Inner Circle members with iLawyermarketing websites had the best performing sites in both Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3 markets. Comparing ARC scores is an objective way of comparing SEO performance. Its also very helpful to compare rankings over time. For example we launched a new site for Clifford Law in November 2018. You can see the dramatic jump he has made in ARC in just 4 months. You can also see how Clifford was ranking in late 2016:
If you are great trial lawyer who wants to improve your web presence, please give me a call. There is no SEO company in the country with a better track record of helping trial lawyers rank in competitive markets than iLawyermarketing!
Alex Morris
National Sales Director
iLawyermarketing
480-889-4216