Feb. 14, 1995

Lawyers and Law Firms on the Internet

In a 1994 working paper, the LII outlined five reasons why lawyers and law firms should be on the Internet. To demonstrate what an Internet presence might do for a firm the paper pointed to two law firms that had already, as of April 1994, established sophisticated servers or home pages on the Net.

The announcement late last month bythe Clifford Chance firm of its new World Wide Web server and the recent appearance of the LEXIS Counsel Connect Website prompted us to look around to see what other firms had moved onto the Internet. Here is a list of thirty law firms (in addition to Clifford Chance) that we find with servers or pages on the World Wide Web in February 1995. Not only are individual firms establishing servers but other organizations are offering collections of law firms and related legal services -- see, for example, the "SEAMLESS WEBsite". Firms offering specialized services are on the Net -- see, for example,

  • Da Vinci Design Company, a technology services company specializing in patent work. And consultants to law firms have begun to appear -- see, for example, John P. Weil & Co., Dana Shultz & Associates, and WLR Cassidy & Associates.

    A year from now? We predict that the Net law firm count will be enormous. Even today, using the West Publishing Company's searchable directory of lawyers one can use the Internet to find a lawyer anywhere in the U.S.

    Alphabetical List of Law Firms on the Net

    Drawn from the Lists Maintained at
    the Indiana University School of Law, Stanford (Yahoo), and AMG