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Practice Area Webpages

Information

As explained below, CounselWeb offers two ways to participate in these webpages:

• Participating in the practice area supersite.
• Obtaining a lawyer or law firm webpage at one of CounselWeb's 50+ websites.

1. The Practice Area Supersite

The idea behind these webpages is simple: several lawyers who practice in one area of the law can design a better website working together than working separately. And creating one set of interrelated web sites will work to the advantage of all the lawyers who participate. Together, this collection of websites will form an law supersite.

Here's how it works. CounselWeb has over 50 legal-related domain names, like appellatelaw.net, familylaw.net, bankruptcylaw.net, and criminallaw.net. (Complete list here.) We are in the process of setting up a website at each of these domain names. At most of these websites, there will be three sets of webpages:

• a general practice area website
• pratice area webpages for individual states or other subdivisions of the practice area
• individual attorney or law firm webpages

These three sets of webpages all contain links pointing to each other:

1. The general law webpage contains general information about that particular area of the law, links to the state practice area webpages, and links to the individual attorney or law firm webpages.
   
2. Each state webpage will load when a user enters the URL of the website / abbreviation, where abbreviation is the standard two-letter postal abbreviation for the state. For example, the URL of the California appellate law webpage is "www.appellatelaw.net/ca. Each state webpage will contain information about that particular area of the law in that particular state. Each state webpage will be prepared by a different attorney or law firm.
   
3. The attorney webpages wil load when a user enters the URL of the website / attorneyname, where attorneyname is the name of the attorney or law firm. These webpages will contain information about the particular attorney or law firm.

The Benefits of Participating A Supersite

There are several benefits to a structure like this.

Since each state webpage is prepared by a different attorney, we will have many attorneys with many perspecitves contributing to this website. Since most attorneys practice primarily, if not exclusively, in one state, individual contirbutors can focus on the area they know best. The result will be a website with more information on the particular area of the law than any single attorney could provide.

Because of this size of this website, it is likely to attract more traffic than an individual website could. Most people find websites through search engines, and all of the websites at this site will be registered on all the major search engines. No single webpage can consistently appear at the top of search engines. Different webpages appear at different positions, depending on the search engine's own internal programming and the wording of the search query.

But with enough practice area webpages, it is likely that some of the webpages will appear high on the search engine results page. And once people enter the site, they are likely to browse around and find the other websites in that practice area.

Similarly, some web hits come from direct links from other webpages. Again, since each webpage will have links from other webpages on different sites, there is likely to be a large number of links into the website from many independent webpages.

Separating the substantive practice area webpages from the attorney webpages increases the likelihood that each will be found on search engines or through links. It also increases the likelihood that people will visit the website. Most webpage experts generally agree that "content is king." A "billboard" webpage that simply describes a lawyer's or law firm's practice is not likely to get many hits. But a webpage that provdes useful information is considerably more likely to get hits.

This structure enables lawyers in different states to help each other find clients. Most lawyers do not really compete against lawyers in other states. Accordingly, a Texan looking for a Texas appellate lawyer who finds a New York appellate law page will not be interested in hiring the New York attorney. But if the New York appellate law webpage provided a link to the Texas appellate law page, and the Texas page did the same for the New York page, then both lawyers are better off. Each will get some web traffic from the other site, and this redirected web traffic will likely be people from their state.

Since each attorney webpage and each state webpage provides links to the general webpage, and the general webpage provides links back out to the state webpages and the attorney webpages, anyone wandering into any part of the practice area site can easily find the best webpage for them.

What You Get By Participating in the Supersite

If you sign up for a webpage, you will actually receive two webpages: a state or federal circuit webpage and an individual attorney or lawfirm webpage.

Your webpages include the following:

• 25 megabytes of hard disk space
• The exclusive state webpage in that particular area.
• Multiple pages with text, graphics, forms, sounds, and anything else you would like to include.
• Full FTP access to your sites. This enables you to update your site with new or modified webpages as often as you would like.
• Use of a hits counter with different number styles
• Use of CounselWeb's form responser (This CGI program takes the information from a form on your webpage and e-mails you the data.)
• Use of other CounselWeb CGI programs as they are developed.
• Annotated links from the practice area general webpage
• An annotated link to your individual webpage from the attorneys page on the general appellate law webpage.
• A link to your individual webpage at the bottom of each page on the general webpage.
• Use of the discussion on CounselWeb's discussion list for your particular state.

The price of a basic webpage is $400 per year, with a one-time $50 set up fee. This is about $33 per month. (Additional disk space and matching e-mail addresses are also available.)

2. A Lawyer or Law Firm Webpage

If you do not wish to participate in the supersite, or if your state is already taken on the supersite, you can still have a lawyer or law firm webpage at any particular domain name, You can put whatever you would like on your webpage.

Also, the general appellate law webpage will include a link to your webpage from that website's attorneys webpage.

Your webpages include the following:

• 15 megabytes of hard disk space
• Multiple pages with text, graphics, forms, sounds, and anything else you would like to include.
• Full FTP access to your sites. This enables you to update your site with new or modified webpages as often as you would like.
• Use of a hits counter with different number styles
• Use of CounselWeb's form responser (This CGI program takes the information from a form on your webpage and e-mails you the data.)
• Use of other CounselWeb CGI programs as they are developed.
• An annotated link to your individual webpage from the attorneys page on the general practice area webpage.

The price of an attorney or law firm webpage is $150 per year, with a one-time $50 set up fee. This is under $13 per month. (Additional disk space and matching e-mail addresses are also available.)

If you already have your own domain name, or would like one, we can host your site as well. You will receive everything in the lawyer or law firm webpage, plus your own domain name. The price of hosting your own domain name is $200 per year, with a one-time $50 set up fee.

How to Write a Webpage

You might wander how you go about writing a webpage. Actually, the basic idea is quite easy. There are numerous inexpensive webpage editors that work like word processors. You simply type your text, format it using pull-down menus or the toolbar, insert images, and select things like fonts, text size, background colors, document titles, and background images. You save each page as a computer file on your own computer, the same way you save word processing documents.

When you sign up for a webpage, you will receive information on how to transfer files from your computer to the appellate law computer using an FTP program. (FTP is a way of sending computer files over the internet from one computer to another.) There are several good FTP programs that are free and can be downloaded over the internet. We will provide you with all the necessary information. You would then just send the files from your computer to the appellate law computer.

Once the files are on the appellate law computer, your webpage is up and running.

More detailed information about setting up a webpage can be found on CounselWeb's WWW Faq page.

CounselWeb is currently in the process of developing an on-line webpage editor. Once this is up and running, you can design and preview a webpage on-line. When you are satisfied with it, simply click "save." Your webpage will be saved in the appropriate place on the appellate law computer and will be up and running.

The most important part of writing a legal webpage is determing what to say. Appellate law webpages can include information on the appellate process in your jurisdiction, appellate judges, recent legal developments, and the dicussion from the appellate law webpages. Browse through the webpages on this site -- and other legal webpages as well -- to see what other lawyers have done.

How to Obtain More Information or Sign Up

If you are interested in creating an appellate law webpage, or if you would like more information, please fill out the following form.

Firms of all sizes, in all fields, are discovering the benefits of a presence on the Web. Web sites allow you to advertise your services to potential new clients and to provide information and support to your existing clients. Setting up a webpage is simpler than you might have thought.

CounselWeb offers webpages of varying size and price. We can host your site at one of our legal-related domain names OR we can register your own firm name as a domain name.

Many companies host webpages. CounselWeb is competitively priced, but offers something that no other company offers or can offer: practice-specific legal Supersites. Placing your website at a CounselWeb Supersite is one great way of increasing the amount of web traffic you receive.

Here's how it works. CounselWeb has registered over 80 legal-related domain names (like familylaw.net, criminallaw.net, trademarklaw.net, appellatelaw.net, litigation.net, ....). We are in the process of setting up a general website at each of these domain names. This general website will contain general information about that area of the law, and we will register each general site with all of the major search engines.

Part of the general website will be a webpage with an annotated list of links to all of the lawyer and law firm websites at that domain name. Similarly, each of the lawyer and law firm websites at the domain name will contain a link back to the general website. (CounselWeb requires this of all websites at our domain names.)

For example, suppose there are 50 lawyer or firm websites at the appellatelaw.net domain name. The general appellate law website will contain links to all 50 individual or firm websites, and each of these in turn will contain a link back to the general appellate law page.

The result is an interlinked Supersite.

Each Supersite will contain an incredible amount of information about that particular area of the law.

What are the advantages of a website at a CounselWeb Supersite?

First, the synergies between the different websites are likely to generate more web traffic at a Supersite than at an ordinary website.

A lot of web hits come from people using search enginges. However, no single webpage can consistently appear at the top of search engines. Different webpages will appear at different positions, depending on the search engine's own internal programming and the wording of the query.

But with enough webpages, it is likely that at least some of the webpages in the Supersite webpages will appear at or near the top of the list, regardless of the exact wording of the user's search. And anyone visiting one webpage at the Supersite will have links to each of the other webpages at the Supersite.

Similarly, some web hits come from direct links from other webpages. Again, since each webpage will have links from other independent webpages, there is likely to be a large number of links into the Supersite from many independent webpages.

These links are likely to produce a substantial number of hits, even though some web users will be lead to other sites. Because most of the the lawyers or law firms maintaining website on the Supersite are likely to be from different parts of the country, these law firms will not be directly competing against each other for clients. Most lawyers in Los Angeles would be pleased to have reciprocal links with a lawyer in Miami. The Los Angeles lawyer will receiving hits from Los Angeles clients entering the Miami lawyer's site, and not not lose much if Miami clients leave his site and go to the Miami lawyer's site. In short, all of the webpages on the Supersite will indirectly assist all of the other webpages on the Supersite by providing a link back to the general webpage.

Second, a decentralized Supersite can provide more information to users than a single site maintained by a single lawyer can.

Webpage design experts agree that important and relevant content is necessary to generate web traffic. Different lawers with different perspectives on a single area of law will produce different types of webpages. The Supersite -- consisting of many different webpages designed by very different people -- will produce a large amount of information presented in diverse ways.

Each Supersite will become more valuable as time goes on. As existing Supersite websites grow, more Supersite websites are created, and more offsite websites link to Supersite websites, the popularity and reputation of each supersite will grow. More people will browse through the Supersite, and each website will have a greater chance of being found.

CounselWeb offers four basic webpage plans for lawyers and lawfirms. Also, CounselWeb has a full webpage of FAQs about lawyer webpages.