Review sites are a dime a dozen these days. This is doubly true for legal directories. But which ones are best? How is Superlawyers.com?

Each one stakes a claim to being the most useful, reliable and trustworthy source of information. Web users will often first turn to online review sites before making any kind of decision. Public opinion can be a strong persuader and review sites capitalize on this, relying on a mix of customer reviews and complex algorithms to rank the different profiles featured.

But, how does one decide which one to trust?

Clearway Investigates, Clearwaylaw.com’s recurring feature, is a great first step to take. Our goal is to turn a critical eye on the claims made by these review sites and help the public find the best source of information.

Today’s subject? Superlawyers.com. The company has been made fun of a lot online, so we have included a few legal memes throughout this article.

What is Superlawyers.com?

Superlawyers.com can make a pretty strong claim to being a reliable source of information. It’s certainly one of the more established sites out there. Its history stretches back before its website even, to a print magazine – Superlawyers Magazine – distributed mainly to law schools and libraries.

SuperLawyers was founded back in 1991. Today it is part of a collection of companies owned by Thompson Reuters. Findlaw.com is another site owned by the same organization, among a dozen other companies spanning several different industries.

Superlawyers.com features a comprehensive directory of lawyer and law firm profiles broken down by region, state and over 70 different practice areas. Each profile features any awards the lawyer has earned as well as a profile and full contact information.

They also provide a large library of law guides and resources developed by their in-house writing staff as well as articles from Superlawyers magazine. The online edition of Superlawyers Magazine is also available online. Users can view the different editions of the magazine published for many states and larger metros across the country.

There are a number of paid options as well, but we’ll cover that a bit later.

What is Ask Superlawyers?

Ask Superlawyers is Superlawyers.com’s version of the popular Q&A featured on many legal directory websites. The site’s Q&A features common questions with responses from real lawyers with profiles on the site.

Unlike other legal directory websites, however, the questions included don’t appear to be connected to questions asked by the public but instead are connected to optional promotional features for lawyers that pay for the Premium online lawyer profile option.

As a result of this, the answers aren’t dated, so it’s hard to vouch for how accurate, or up-to-date this information is.

Is Superlawyers.com different from other ranking sites?

In the legal community, Superlawyers.com actually has a pretty solid reputation. A lot of this can be credited to its longevity online, but it also has a unique ranking system that sets it apart from many legal directory websites.

If you’re a lawyer, you can’t just register for a profile like many online directories and have it featured on the website. Superlawyers.com’s big selling call to action is that it only features top lawyers from each state. The profiles featured on the site only represent the top 5% of lawyers from each state in the union, that’s it!

The other 95% are out of luck.

Superlawyers.com touts a sophisticated (and US-patented) process of selecting only the best of the best. Those selected are selected based on merit and ranking information gathered by their peers and the company’s own research team.

In addition, the site also features a “rising stars” list that is restricted to those 40 and under or those that have been in practice for less than ten years. From those that meet those criteria, only the top 2.5% are selected in each state.

How are the lawyers featured on Superlawyers.com selected?

The Superlawyers.com selection team utilizes a patented, multi-step selection process (US. patent 8,412,564.)

The essentials of it are a yearly survey sent out to managing partners at law firms across the country where they can nominate lawyers they think are worthy. Lawyers can also be nominated by their peers, but cannot nominate themselves. This is important to note.

The company also conducts independent research to identify candidates not identified by other means. They have 12 indicators they can use to assess professional achievement and peer recognition. The selections are then reviewed annually to make sure the site continues to feature only top-tier talent.

Can you pay to be featured on Superlawyers.com?

While you can’t pay to have your profile added to the site, you can pay to have it displayed more prominently. The company isn’t putting these rankings out there out of the goodness of their hearts after all.

Lawyers can either pay for a “Topspot” feature or a “Spotlight” feature, paying more for a more prominent placement. A prerequisite of paying for a featured sponsored location on the directory pages is the Premium Online Attorney. This feature unlocks even more information that can be displayed on the lawyer profile and a professionally written “SEO-friendly” biography.

Lastly, lawyers can pay to have sponsored content featured on the site, either in the form of advertorial articles or sponsored answers in the Ask a Lawyers section.

Is it worth paying for an enhanced profile on Superlawyers.com?

If you can get on the site that is. Superlawyers.com is one of the more popular legal directories out there and, as we noted above, among the oldest and best regarded. So, it’s definitely worth it.

Step one to having your profile featured: Be a good lawyer.

Or at least a popular and/or well-liked lawyer.

Once you’ve qualified for the list, paying for a sponsored position may be a good investment, given the much smaller pool of competitors compared to other directories out there.

The website has developed a SEMrush quality score of 72 and average monthly visitors of between 400K and 600K – that’s a good number of eyeballs.

Oddly though, the “Ask a Lawyer” section of the website is only populated by “sponsored answers”, removing some of the credibility of the answers found there. Unlike many other legal directories, Superlawyers.com has not yet branched out into offering a broader selection of paid marketing services, sticking pretty closely to its directory.

There are many out there that see the service as nothing more than a cash grab. The difference between the standard and sponsored profiles is pretty stark. The paid profiles on the main search pages feature call-to-action buttons with contact information prominently positioned and coloured.

The distinguishing symbol that denotes a sponsored profile is also pretty small and unremarkable. At a glance, it’s not immediately evident which profiles are sponsored and which aren’t.

Squint: it’s the small bookmark symbol under the profile picture.

Does being named a Superlawyer mean anything?

Sure being named a Superlawyer is good for bragging rights, but will it make a difference where it really matters – to your business’s bottom line?

That’s up for debate. Many believe that the current glut of online directories and awards has only served to dilute their value. It’s not clear that the general public will be swayed by such awards.

The profiles featured don’t boast any kind of ranking system or visible reviews for each profile. So aside from the site’s somewhat empty promise of only showcasing the best of the best, there’s little visible proof on web users to base their decision.

Does the website provide visibility in search engines?

Among the many benefit claims that Superlawyers.com boasts for its enhanced lawyer profiles is its visibility in search engines. The website gets a very healthy number of visitors courtesy of organic search by search engines – 400K+ each month. Naturally, there is plenty more traffic coming to the site from other sources as well like referrals and paid advertisements.

I did a quick test of different legal specialties in different major markets across the United States and Superlawyers.com’s directory more often than not appears on the first page of the results. Although the directory tended to appear closer to the bottom, compared to more relevant local results and more popular (and newer) directories like Justia.com.

Superlawyers are well established in search but are being outpaced by newer directories and websites using newer, more polished online marketing techniques. Superlawyers.com seems to be showing its age a bit, with many of its web pages looking particularly outdated.

Closing Thoughts

The golden question – should you add Superlawyers.com to your marketing toolkit?

The good news is that at least part of that choice isn’t up to you. In order to even be given the opportunity to appear in the directory, you have to be a top lawyer in your field. Superlawyers.com is an invite-only directory that purports to only feature the top 5% of talent in each state.

Online opinions of the value or prestige of being named a Superlawyer are definitely mixed. Once selected to the list, lawyers are then invited to pay for a preferred location through different paid tiers and a paid membership. The profiles themselves are pretty basic, with no real ranking system beyond being named to list, and no customer reviews – something consumers look for these days.

The website receives a healthy amount of monthly traffic, so maintaining a free profile is a no-brainer really, if you qualify – especially in smaller markets. As for the paid membership and tiered positioning in the directory, your money might be better spent elsewhere on a newer directory with more features available to you.

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