The History of FindLaw, Legal Marketing Company
Some say that the hardest part of starting a successful project is the first step. However, two attorney’s located in Silicon valley made this ambitious feat a serious reality when gathering a list of attorney resources for Northern California law librarians in 1995. Through doing this, they had constructed one of the most expansive public resource collections for legal information by creating FindLaw. FindLaw was later launched entirely online January 9th, 1996 by the founders and co-founder Martin Roscheisen, providing a variety of several legal resources those who need it for free.
FindLaw quickly rose in law resource notoriety, winning their 3rd “gold medal” for best legal website in 1999, by providing and launching other tools and resources through their initial start-up. In only 3 years, FindLaw develops partnerships with The New York Times, CNN, USA Today, and other prominent news publications to share legal content with, and help provide content for. After years of online tool launches, and website acquisitions, the parent company of prominent publisher West Publishing, Thomas Reuters, acquires FindLaw. Later that same year in November, it was reported that FindLaw.com had reached 42 million page views per month. Then in 2002, this merger would show to be very successful when FindLaw joined forces with Yahoo in February, later surpassing 50 million page views per month by July, and was ranked in the top 500 U.S. websites in December. Following their already prominent trend, FindLaw partners with The Wall Street Journal in 2003 to provide them with online law resources, still remaining the professional leader in legal resource information.
As FindLaw continued to expand, innovate, and renovate their free legal resource format, they were developing online marketing solutions for law firms. They have not been without their detractors. Reviews for Findlaw span from great to abysmal. As a way to limit the presence of negative reviews, they continued to press on towards becoming a volume business. They created several resources for the legal world through launching LegalMinds, LegalConnection, FirmSite en Español, and many more. In 2005, FindLaw became the most visited legal website in the world, and they continued to be nominated, and awarded for their consistent effort, easy to use platforms, and informational organization, even leading them to landing a total of 7 awards in 2007, and another 5 in 2008. FindLaw continued to follow this pattern in the years to follow. In 2010, FindLaw opens up their market to the international stage by launching FindLaw UK, and also launching FirmSites in the UK as well. Later that year, they launched FindLaw mobile, opening up the portable access to their array of tools and resources on the go. In 2013, FindLaw partners with Google to launch PCC advertising in 2013, opening up advertising opportunities for law firms, and other sources for firms as well. To this day, FindLaw still remains the leading source for legal information and material, in arguably one of the most competitive markets of the 21st century.
