Fortunately (for the most part) those days are over. The internet and more specifically internet search technology and most users' ability to use it has grown up. Now you can not only find out incredible amounts of information on potential lawyers but also tons of useful info on even the most arcane aspects of DUI law.
But you've got to know how to look at this sea of information and separate the information that's useful from the stuff that's not. Understanding how lawyers advertise their services on the internet will help you distinguish from a cheesey "adver-site" from an informative website that not only tells you about the lawyer, but also a lot about the law.
For purposes of this discussion we will use Google as our search engine exemplar. Regardless of what search engine you use, be it Bing, Yahoo, or any other, the concepts are all similar.
Paid Advertising on the Top of Google Search Results
If you did a google search of say, "Carol Stream DUI attorney" you would find three kinds of results. Those results in the shaded box at the top of the page and the right side of the page are called "pay per click" ads. Each of those entries has been placed there because either a lawyer or an advertising firm working on behalf of the lawyer has put up money to be included on the result page returned as a result of your search query, "Carol Stream DUI attorney." Google does not approve or in any way research the content of these ads beyond the minimum standards of decency. The third type, the gold-standard of search results, are organic results. These appear below the shaded box of paid advertising at the top of the page. Organic results should be relied on most because they are on the page because they typically will have the most relevant content to your search query and also are the most visited sites by people making the similar search queries.
These pay per click ads are like a box of chocolates - you never know what you're going to get. Some highly reputable and experienced DUI lawyers do place ads. But the amount of these DUI professionals is dwarfed by the number of lawyers who resort to this type of advertising in desperation.
While some of the DUI attorney sites that do paid advertising can be helpful in introducing lawyers who you might want to hire for a Carol Stream DUI case, the majority of the sites that use pay per click advertising to appear in the shaded box at the top of the google search result page are cheesy and largely uninformative - at least in my opinion.
However, the most important thing to remember about lawyers who use paid advertising is that the fees they charge you are likely to be higher as a result of the advertising costs. There is no such thing as a free lunch and law practices are also businesses. Lawyers who aggressively use paid internet advertising in order to appear on page one of google search results will typically pass those advertising costs on to the unsuspecting client by charging inflated fees.
Cookie-Cutter Websites for DUI lawyers
The overwhelming majority of the lawyer websites that appear in search engine results are sites manufactured by advertising companies that specialize in marketing lawyers. These advertising companies will typically construct the lawyer's website from templates. After constructing the website, the advertising company will typically charge the lawyer a monthly "hosting" fee that costs the lawyer as much as $3,500 per month. There are two advertising firms who dominate the market in the Chicago area for this type of service. They are Thompson-Reuters and On-line Video Concepts. You can often determine if a lawyer has used one of these firms by scrolling to the bottom of the home page and reading the fine print.
Of course, it would be reasonable to expect that most lawyers might not be skilled enough in writing computer code to construct their own websites so farming out the construction of their website would be understandable. The problem with the sites created by advertising companies is that they frequently contain too little usable information for the consumer. The legal information that they do contain is usually very generalized. The reason for this is that most of the content on these cookie-cutter websites is not written by the lawyer or law firm whose site it is!
Because these cookie cutter sites proliferate in DuPage County finding a Carol Stream DUI defense site with solid information can be exasperating because at the end of the day all of these sites essentially say the same things and even look and "feel" the same.
The internet is absolutely inundated with advertising aggregation sites. These sites will typically pick an industry like law, or medicine, or dentistry and then aggregate large numbers of names and addresses of businesses in the targetted industry along with very general information. These sites will typically charge the lawyer or doctor or dentist fees for premium positioning on these sites.
In the field of law, the biggest aggregators are FindLaw, HG, Avvo, and Justia.
These sites serve the same purpose of a phone directory and not much more. While there is nothing wrong with these types of sites, finding a Carol Stream DUI defense professional merely by looking at these sites is hit and miss. Because these are for-profit businesses they will typically funnel you to lawyers who pay the most for placement in these directories. The higher the placement or fancier the directory entry, the more that lawyer has probably paid. As discussed above these advertising costs from the lawyer are likely to be passed on to you, the consumer.
Finding the right lawyer for a Carol Stream DUI case is one that takes some research. Don't put it off, but don't rush. You need to be diligent and patient in your internet search. Look for sites that are high on the search result page organically not necessarily by advertising placement in the shaded box at the top of the page. Look for sites for actual lawyers or law firms rather than law directory sites. Finally, look for sites with quality content. Bells and whistles are the hallmark of cookie cutter sites. They may look great but typically provide very little useful information.
