Are you looking for the best legal directories in 2023? Searching online for legal help can be a daunting and difficult task when you don’t know what or who exactly you’re looking for, and it’s likely your search will take you to an online legal directory.
Legal directories are constantly updated, but not all legal directories are created equal, and some are likely more useful than others depending on your situation. So, you might be wondering, what are the best legal directories in 2023?
For lawyers and law firms, online directories are an important cornerstone to marketing any number of legal services to members of the public. People looking for lawyers, they could be looking for legal help for a whole host of legal issues whether they’re looking to make a will or settle an estate, buy or sell a home, or file a lawsuit after slipping and falling in a grocery store.
Top lawyer directories
But gone are the days of having to flip through thick phone books to look up lawyers and law firms, hoping that the one you call can help. Before the days of Google and online reviews, flipping through a phone book blindly searching for a lawyer or plumber or professional of any kind was somewhat of a crap shoot. Just because a law firm or lawyer had the money to put an ad in the yellow pages didn’t mean they were competent or experienced enough to handle any number of legal dilemmas. Picking and choosing a lawyer might as well have involved throwing darts at a board blindfolded, calling the first one you hit.
Meanwhile, advertising a law firm’s services in print is basically a thing of the past with few exceptions for the business press and specialty publications that still make runs of physical copies. Of course, since the days of daily newspapers and phone books are coming to a close with a few notable holdouts, the internet has taken over as the premier source to look up and find legal service providers who can cater to an individual’s unique needs and circumstances.
Important directory listings
The glut of legal information available online is surely indicative of peoples’ thirst for knowledge about the laws and government policies that affect their everyday lives. In the pre-internet era, it would take a trip to a physical library to do legal research for lay people and professionals alike. Legal education, at the same time, was somewhat inaccessible to all but a wealthy few, arguably creating a class divide between those kept ignorant of the law through lack of education and those rich enough to learn the law, its ins and outs, and its limitations.
Though it’s full of fake news and misinformation, the internet changed the public’s relationship with the law in that it paved the way for all kinds of resources to thrive and allow people to access legal information that was once virtually out of reach to regular people without law degrees.
As well, as Yelp did for restaurants, lawyer rating websites offer people a window into the type of experience they can expect if they hire a specific lawyer. While anonymous online reviews in any industry can be problematic and hard to gauge in terms of timeliness and accuracy, they still manage to remove some of the mystery when it comes to hiring a lawyer, especially if they haven’t been referred by a friend, family member, or coworker, for example.
Get new potential clients
Beyond the obvious Google search for lawyers and law firms, having a prominent listing in a high-traffic online legal or lawyer directory can be the difference-maker when seeking out new clientele, expanding a firm’s practice areas, and positioning the business to take advantage of the opportunities legal directories can potentially present. Of course, there are dozens if not hundreds of websites on the internet purporting to be the best, but for firms looking to optimize their rankings in search engines, going by a website’s domain rating is a decent metric to gauge how effective and visible a directory actually is.
The main point of signing up for directory listings is to help your firm get an SEO boost. The goal is to get backlinks from the attorney directory. Many people go to these websites looking for the best lawyer, and they read ratings.
Legal directories in Canada
In contrast to the American market, the Canadian market for legal directories and lawyer rating information is somewhat lacking. The Canadian Bar Association and several provincial law societies offer lawyer directories, but those organizations provide little information in terms of practice expertise and testimonials from past clients. While provincial law societies’ websites are extremely useful when looking up a lawyer’s disciplinary history, one needs to keep in mind that they are self-regulatory bodies that both regulate their members’ behaviour, but also advocate on their members’ behalf and the legal profession on general.
Clearway Law, of course, hopes to change that with our rating and referral resources, along with its constantly updated legal blog content. They are also launching similar operations to serve the massive market in China (clearwaylaw.cn), Clearway aims to make information about common legal questions free and accessible to all who seek out answers, whether they’re going through a divorce or dealing with a noisy neighbour or hostile employer.
Lawyer directories in the United States
In the United States, plenty of websites offer legal directories in addition to legal news and blog content. According to a list compiled by Bipper Media, an online search engine optimization media consulting firm, some directories have impressively high domain ratings when it comes to online legal directories.
Holding the top two spots in their rankings in U.S. News (Lawyers) and Cornell Law School, both of which have a domain rating of 93. The U.S. News (Lawyers) website allows visitors to explore all types of legal content, as well as find lawyers by their locations or areas of practice in all 50 states. You can also browse legal content based on specific questions or areas of law such as bankruptcy law, family law, tax law, or business law.
Below is a list of the top ten legal directories in the U.S. based on domain authority ratings, and several other factors. Many share common characteristics and similar business models, but all the top legal directories listed focus on the U.S. market with its large population of lawyers and rich legal history from nearly two and a half centuries in existence with a robust state and federal court system.
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U.S. News (Lawyers)
But the U.S. News (Lawyers) site carries a disclaimer about the information that appears on its site. It warns visitors that its content is more of a “guide” to help people learn about lawyers, firms, and areas of law. It cautions that its content should not be “the only determining factor” when trying to find a lawyer or firm to represent you. The site, like most lawyer and legal directory services online, doesn’t purport to give legal advice, urging people to get advice from a qualified legal professional rather than taking their general knowledge of legal content to heart as a replacement for expert help.
As well, the site doesn’t guarantee that the lawyers it lists are in good standing with state bar associations, while also admitting that it doesn’t offer endorsements or recommendations of specific lawyers.
Cornell Law School
Like the site listed above, Cornell Law School’s website has a domain rating of 93. Cornell’s website allows people to browse and find attorneys according to location or practice area. The practise area list is quite lengthy, with everything from personal injury and medical malpractice lawyers to white-collar criminal defence and entertainment lawyers. But somewhat tellingly, the Cornell Law School’s online directory provides links to Justia, another online legal directory that comes third on Bipper’s list.
The law school in Ithaca, New York is ranked in the top 20 ivy league schools in the country, and its Legal Information Institute aims to make legal information accessible for people of all stripes to be “able to read and understand the laws that govern them, without cost.”
Justia
Justia’s stated mission is to make access to justice and legal resources “free for all.” The online service offers online marketing and social media services to law firms in addition to a wide array of legal content for lawyers, students and members of the public, while the California-based company also offers an “exclusive membership program” for lawyers to aid in expanding their practices and connecting with potential clients.
It also allows lawyers to claim a personal profile for listing on the site and allows people to search a specific attorney’s name for any past disciplinary actions against them by state bar associations or regulators.
FindLaw
Findlaw.com has a domain rating of 82, putting it in fourth place on Bipper’s list. It offers similar content based on trending topics online, and also offers a whole section on legal questions raised by the multi-year COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. An early entrant into the online legal directory space, the FindLaw website allows lawyers to post their own content and link back to their firm’s website to get clients and steer people towards a firm’s online presence.
Nolo
Nolo is somewhat unique in the online legal directory space, having started out as a publisher of do-it-yourself legal guides dating back to 1971. The site is the culmination of an amalgamation of different niche websites that now make up the Nolo network of dozens of online properties, boasting an evolution since its founding into a technology-driven leader in offering online legal information.
The site offers a vast library of “consumer-friendly” articles about legal topics free of charge, but it also sells a wide selection of “DIY” legal products for people to handle their own legal issues without going to the expense of hiring a lawyer.
However, for the issues that consumers can’t handle by themselves, it also offers a legal directory with thousands of lawyers listed to help people connect with specialized law practitioners who will “compete for your business.”
Best Legal Directories – Avvo
While Avvo’s domain authority is listed as 69, the legal rating website has an extensive stable of lawyers to browse by practice area, state, or city in which they’re located. You can search for lawyers by name or location and see how they’re rated from one to five stars on their personalized profiles. The site, founded in Seattle, boasts that 97 percent of American lawyers appear on it, along with free content answering millions of legal questions.
Local Legal Authorities
In addition to offering editorial commentary and news content about legal developments in the United States through its magazine component, Local Legal Authorities also offers a searchable lawyer directory by location and practice area. Published by Target Market Media, the magazine remains in print and online and features articles about the legal profession and new developments in case law, and case studies on historical rulings. Its lawyer directory features attorneys from all over the United States, highlighting their areas of practice and also has an “Ask a Lawyer” section where specialized legal professionals from all over the country answer questions posed by visitors to the site.
Lawyers.com
With an enviable domain name among online legal directories, Lawyers.com claims it has 25 million visitors per month. Its lawyer directory and review component includes more than a million lawyers based in the U.S., representing nearly 95 percent of all legal professionals practising in the country. The searchable directory allows for both practice area and location-based searches, allowing people to read ratings and reviews to compare and contrast different attorneys in their regions. The site also offers free legal articles written and edited by legal professionals covering all areas of law, including a section about “legal costs and outcomes” where people can access “real-world data and analysis” derived from the site’s readership.
US Legal
While US Legal doesn’t offer a lawyer rating and referral service like the other directories discussed above, the website offers an extensive library of “state-specific” legal forms for sale. Whether you need a template for a real estate deed, a contractor agreement, disclosure document, or land deed form, US Legal offers them for download for a fee online. The US Legal website claims to be one of the first law-focused resources on the internet, monetizing its service through subscriptions and one-off legal form sales. For US$8 a month, a basic subscription provides “unlimited access” to the site’s 85,000 legal forms and claims the service has “banking level” data security. Its premium subscription plan, at US$15 a month, offers the same as the basic plan but also includes an online editor and builder for PDF files for legal documents, with a secure sign and send feature.
Martindale
Martindale’s history dates back to 1868, starting out as a “simple list” to give people the location and contact information of law firms in every U.S. city. The company, known as Martindale-Hubbell, is now a global online network with information on more than a million lawyers and offers legal professionals help with internet marketing solutions while also offering both peer and client review ratings for lawyers.
It claims its rating services are the “gold standard” for attorney ratings in the United States, and its profiles of American attorneys appear on its main website, as well as Lawyers.com and Nolo.com. It was in 2014 when the company joined the online behemoth Internet Brands, which is also affiliated with the Avvo legal directory service discussed above.
Martindale claims its online legal content is essential to draw people in when they’re researching different legal questions because more than a third of the people visiting the site are most likely looking to hire a lawyer sometime in the near future.
Best Legal Directories 2023 Conclusion
Getting on law firm directories is a great way to get traffic to your law firm’s website. Make sure your phone number appears on your profile. Make sure you get verified so that you can use it for digital marketing purposes.
It’s common for people who do personal injury law and criminal defence to really care about search engine results. But all lawyers should care about it.
We hope you found this guide on high-quality free legal directories helpful. Good luck getting your name out there in the legal community.
