Roughly one tenth of respondents appear to be engaged in extended search. These particular clients spend up to six hours searching among five or six solicitors. We do not know whether they make 'better' choices, but they certainly show all the signs of making more informed and considered choices. These results imply that, in general, legal practices have only a limited window of opportunity in which to make members of the public aware of their services. Within this window they must convey information in a way that appears relevant, useful and engaging, as well as saying something distinctive about the practice.
Clients can use many diverse sources of information when searching for a solicitor.
A categorisation of external sources is shown in the accompanying table, Classification of information sources . Of the commercial sources, only meetings with potential solicitors were mentioned to any significant extent. But because clients find legal services difficult to evaluate even after they have used the service, they rely on the opinion and advice of sources they perceive as credible. The types of sources that are seen as credible may be quite diverse, but inexperienced clients tend to perceive personal non-commercial sources as being more credible and impartial. The message here is to consider ways of reaching the most credible influencers.