Master of Your Domain Name

It's been a long time since the Internet was considered to be the sole province of computer technicians and young people. Today, it seems just about everyone is not only connected to the Internet but is using it to blog, to network or to host their own Web site.

And that includes most law firms.

While in the past, law firms might have shelled out big bucks to an outside Web developer and then ducked out of the way while their Web sites were built and occasionally updated, many firms ' even mid-size and small ones ' today are taking the do-it-yourself route and keeping Web maintenance in-house.

Some firms have their own IT teams, others allocate the work to their marketing departments, and many let their attorneys do it themselves.

The result can be cheaper, more efficient and more hands-on than outsourcing the work.

“It's really a cost benefit,” says Lance J. Nelson, managing partner of MacElree Harvey in West Chester, PA. “It's more economical, if you have a good in-house person, to be able to do it that way.” Nelson says his firm pays an in-house IT person to take care of daily updates and maintenance.

Jason Lisi, president of Web development company Legal Internet Solutions, says it's now easier than ever for firms to maintain their own Web sites.

“Most of the Web sites that are built these days ' at least sophisticated [ones] ' have content management systems, which give firms the ability to log in to a Web site and update things like news and attorney bios in a very easy-to-use interface without any knowledge of HTML code or fancy programming,” says Lisi, adding that by updating their own content, firms avoid the costs and lag time that come with using an outside company. “I'm happy to bill clients to put up small, little pieces of info, but it makes a lot more sense to have a good, built-in content management system,” he says.

“Almost all of our day-to-day updating is done in-house,” says Alan C. Promer, a shareholder at Hangley Aronchick Segal & Pudlin in Philadelphia and co-editor on the firm's Web site editorial board.

Promer says a Web site containing outdated information reflects poorly on the firm and having the ability to make changes to Web content on the fly is invaluable: “We view it as critical to be able to update the content of our site quickly. I think a firm does itself a disservice if the content on its Web site appears obviously stale.”

Thomas P. Peterson, managing shareholder of Tucker Arensberg in Pittsburgh, PA, says his firm's marketing director is in charge of making day-to-day updates to the Web site.

Philadelphia-based plaintiffs firm Kline & Specter employs a Web group in-house whose job it is to regularly update the firm's Web site, according to managing partner Tom Kline. “They deal with content as well as with the technical aspects of updating any new video and things like seminars, as well as updating content when there are cases that are in the public eye.”

Kline admitts that keeping a Web team on staff is “both time-consuming and a significant cost,” but is also necessary for a firm that counts itself among the largest in Pennsylvania's highly competitive plaintiffs bar. “I think for firms that are smaller and have smaller Web sites, they probably don't have the capacity or the need for [an in-house Web group],” Kline says. “I think that, for us, it works because we have enough work on our Web site to keep more than one person busy on various aspects of it.”

What Goes Up and What Must Come Down

Part of managing a Web site is figuring out how to upload information to the Internet, but another significant aspect involves deciding what information to upload and what to erase.

The quality of content, Kline says, is “probably the most important and driving force on any Web site.”

Kline says decisions about the actual information that appears on his firm's site are made primarily by the firm's content manager, who has a “significant news background,” but adds that the firm's attorneys do have input.

According to Promer, Hangley Aronchick's Web site editorial board is staffed with attorneys who are charged with managing content on the portions of the Web site that correspond to their practice areas. “That's all part of the attempt to make sure that some attorneys are responsible for various parts of the Web site and that way we can ask that person to work on their section” when updates need to be made, Promer says.

Nelson says that, while his firm's IT expert is responsible for uploading information and making changes to the Web site, editorial decisions about content are made by a marketing committee composed of firm partners and associates.

Peterson says he and a number of other members of Tucker Arensberg's management review all updates to the firm's Web site before they go live.

Don't Try This In-House

While keeping a Web site updated is something that can be done fairly easily by law firms themselves, the general consensus among those interviewed by Internet Law & Strategy's ALM affiliate The Legal Intelligencer was that the actual construction of a professional-looking site and any major design renovations thereafter are jobs for Web experts.

Nelson, Kline, Peterson and Promer all say that their firms outsourced the initial creation of their Web sites and continue to work with outside consultants on significant design overhauls and other technical matters.

“Design is nearly impossible to do in a highly professional and attractive way by amateurs. That needs to be left to professionals,” Kline says, adding that his firm still occasionally consults the Colorado-based company that built its Web site.

Similarly, Nelson says that for “major upgrades” his firm works with the same Devon, PA-based company that initially developed its Web site.

Promer agrees that not every aspect of his firm's Web site can be handled within the firm. “There's a demarcation between what we can do in-house [and what needs to be outsourced]; we're not Web developers,” he says.

Lisi says Web sites can be built in such a way as to give firms the power to alter design elements in-house but that typically someone with a graphic design background is needed to properly utilize that function. “Firms don't usually ask for that or even consider it as something they want,” he says.