Once work is completed this will be migrated over to lawfirmdiscussion.com (that URL doesn't work yet). The data will also be mirrored on summerassociate.com once we get the rest of that site up and running (which will probably be a while).
The message boards links will eventually go to the xo lawyer board.
And yes, I know about the FireFox bug on the chart pages. Don't know how to fix it, but I'll have rachmiel look at it when he has the chance (or if anyone here knows the solution feel free to mention it).
Also, feel free to give suggestions for replacements for Jesus and Big Changes (or vote to keep them if you want).
Date: January 23rd, 2007 12:05 AM Author: high-end office gay wizard
Looks pretty good. I'll be interested to see the board. I'm afraid it may turn into a double of this board, though. Over a length of time that may change given the title, etc.
Date: January 23rd, 2007 12:22 AM Author: flushed crusty patrolman mediation
Yeah.
Or maybe we'd implement a more extreme form of the optional moderation on that mirror (e.g. to view the unmoderated version you'd have to login and select an option from a preferences menu, rather than just clicking a link once and getting cookies enabled).
Basically I think that site would be more of a "work-safe" board for lawyers. Everyone else (as well as lawyers who don't give a shit about reading xo itself from work) can just continue to post on this board (all the content from the other board would end up here too so it's not like anyone would miss out on anything by staying here and not posting through the other site).
Please correct me if you think I'm missing some important issue with this plan though.
Date: January 23rd, 2007 12:38 AM Author: adventurous goyim senate
Perhaps making the system "less" google-able will decrease the possibility of outtings actually mattering.
All that stuff yesterday with that smear campaign against that poster and emailing his employer and stuff could be pretty nasty in a lawyer only context...
Date: January 23rd, 2007 9:06 AM Author: Dead Dashing Scourge Upon The Earth Digit Ratio
At this point, it looks like it has a lot of potential. I would add a few more markets on there. It seems you only list Boston, Chicago,DC and NY. I would add San Francisco, Minneapolis, and probably a few others to make it useful across the board. But it looks great.
Date: January 24th, 2007 4:49 AM Author: flushed crusty patrolman mediation
Yeah there are definitely going to be more markets added -- just that 1) right now I'm just trying to get *something* up there and NY information is pretty easy to get and 2) information for non-NY markets is surprisingly difficult to obtain -- while Greedy has decent charts for NY (though even those are surprisingly incomplete), it seems like any meaningful info for non-NY markets is either very hard to find or not out there at all.
Date: January 23rd, 2007 9:44 AM Author: outnumbered resort sandwich
I think the salary charts should be sortable--i.e. the ability to sort by name, compensation for a particular year, etc.
I think it is unnecessary to highlight above market and below market firms on the list, especially since you seem to be planning separate pages for such firms. This is even more unnecessary if you give the option to sort the lists.
I do think you need to change the images. The Jesus could be changed to some sort of generic lawyerish image like a gavel, a courthouse, or whatever. I don't know about the big changes picture. Maybe it could be an ad?
I know you want "synergy" and google rank boosting, so have included the third column with partners and friends. Realistically, however, I don't think this would get much use from real persons. For that reason, it takes up a very disproportionate amount of space. Perhaps the links could be at the bottom or in a drop down box somewhere.
Once you get farther along, I hope you make liberal use of cross-references. For example, I should be able to click on STB's name in the compensation list to go to their profile. From their profile, there should be a link to see articles related to them and another link to search the forum for related threads. Likewise, the profile should aggregate statistics from the hiring site (summerassociate.com) for quick and easy reference and summerassociate.com should have links to the relevant firm profiles. Etc., etc., etc.
"Law firm articles" could perhaps be renamed "law firm news" and could be THE source for breaking law firm news. Thus when xoxo breaks news, selected moderators could post it to the law firm news website--thus giving a reputable place for MSM sources to credit (since they don't like citing xoxo--as evidenced by this stb/lat stuff).
I've previously given suggestions about summerassociate.com in another thread. I think you said you will be making it more like lsn. this is critical. Without the ability to update information, it is pretty useless.
Other than that, I think the general layout is fine. I think that is mainly what you're looking for right now, right? I would try to make it a little more customized, perhaps using a logo or stylized text for the website title (or giving it some sort of name besides "Law Firm Discussion"). Right now, it's so generic. It's just an out-of-the-box website template. Reminds me of all those google-bombing typosquatting websites. (like http://www.gmaail.com/ )
Finally, I'm not sure that a "lawyers only" board will work, or will solve the problems of xoxo.
Date: January 24th, 2007 4:48 AM Author: flushed crusty patrolman mediation
Great ideas, and a lot of that stuff is definitely going to be implemented. Definitely going to have the firm names on the charts lead to profiles and a whole lot of other cross-references. Most of this stuff will be integrated with summerassociate.com also (actually the original plan was to have most of this be exclusively on summer associate, but since people seem to want a "lawyer" site that idea has gone out the window).
I like your law firm news idea -- going to have to think a lot about how to best implement that though. Right now my goal is to just get *something* up so it doesn't just linger. Maybe set it up as a blog (with lots of contributors) or something?
Date: January 24th, 2007 6:13 AM Author: outnumbered resort sandwich
I think a blog would serve the needs perfectly. That seems to be the hot thing on teh interwebs these days. Using tags, you can easily make links to posts on partitcular topics/firms/etc.
Date: January 23rd, 2007 12:11 AM Author: flushed crusty patrolman mediation
Yeah, that's the FireFox bug I was referring to, except it seems to be a problem for newer versions of IE too. No clue what's causing it but I'm sure rachmiel will figure it out.
Date: January 23rd, 2007 12:24 AM Author: flushed crusty patrolman mediation
Right now I'm envisioning all the compensation / NALP / Amlaw data, plus stuff like links to notable threads, mentions of important past events (e.g. Shearman's associate firings, Davis Polk's year with no bonus, etc.), an RSS feed of Google News for the firm, etc.
Date: January 24th, 2007 4:51 AM Author: flushed crusty patrolman mediation
Definitely going to have that all.
The big question: should everything be on one page, or should it be broken down on separate pages (e.g. the summer associate demographic data)? Because I can see these pages becoming very very big (like NALP directory pages, or even longer) if everything is one page. Maybe people wouldn't care if that was the case, but I figure some feedback on the issue would be nice before I start to actually design the thing.
Date: January 24th, 2007 6:18 AM Author: outnumbered resort sandwich
I think ideally there would be a SINGLE page for each firm (including all of its offices) and you could drill down for more info. So on the profile page, there'd be a box summarizing summer associate demographics for the most recent year (maybe just listing the top feeder schools and total class size, whatever). Then there'd also be a link for a pop-up window or whatever for "More Detail..." where you could see historical data, filter by office, etc.
Obviously this is a lot of work and is more complicated (and also more difficult to maintain if you're using traditional HTML design). But I think it would be great to have a one-stop page for each firm so people don't have to go through a bunch of pages for different details, but detailed sub-pages for those who want particulars.
Date: January 24th, 2007 6:33 AM Author: flushed crusty patrolman mediation
Thanks, I'll give that a shot. Yeah, traditional HTML is limiting... but rachmiel is busy and I don't know php, so I figure I'll just get something up there and then rachmiel or someone else can convert it to php once there's a base to build off of.
What about the chart pages? Are they structured well as-is, or are they annoying to navigate because of the different pages?
Date: January 24th, 2007 7:33 AM Author: flushed crusty patrolman mediation
What about salary information? Should that be repeated on the firm profile page (but w/ all class years in the same table) or should it just contain links to the charts that have all the firms on them?
Date: January 24th, 2007 7:37 AM Author: Plum Glittery Kitty Property
repeat it. it can be annoying to have to find the info on the charts. plus, as it is now, the charts are broken up, which just means more clicking and going back.
Date: January 24th, 2007 4:53 AM Author: flushed crusty patrolman mediation
Also should each office have its own profile page, or just the one firm profile page? If stuff is broken down (e.g. summer associate stuff on a separate page) should that be broken down at the firm level or at the office level?
Date: January 24th, 2007 6:41 AM Author: Plum Glittery Kitty Property
i don't know whether each office should have its own page, but definitely break summer stuff etc down by office. unless the firms have the same stats across the board. which i'm pretty sure they probably don't.
Date: January 24th, 2007 9:38 AM Author: outnumbered resort sandwich
I think BOTH: a single page with general stuff about the overall firm and tidbits about the different offices, and links to detailed "subpages" on each office.
Date: January 23rd, 2007 1:17 AM Author: high-end office gay wizard
Plus, if a law firm site was actually frequented by *just practicing attorneys* it would be a little toned down compared to the rampant high schoolers/college students here.
Date: January 24th, 2007 6:34 AM Author: flushed crusty patrolman mediation
We have other things planned for summerassociate.com. Also I really don't think an LSN format will be practical given how different the processes are. However we might do a modified version of things (profiles to store basic info so people don't need to keep inputting it, but the same basic display format).
Date: January 24th, 2007 6:45 AM Author: Plum Glittery Kitty Property
how bout a search feature that would divide 1Ls from 2Ls, search by school maybe? rank? i don't know...then the results page would have the user, their school, their gpa, their rank, and from there the ability to go to individual user profiles. something like that would be super.
Date: January 24th, 2007 6:47 AM Author: flushed crusty patrolman mediation
I don't think you realize just how easy it is to out someone based on having "users" listed. That's the critical reason why a pure LSN format wouldn't work (in addition to the fact that it would be far more time intensive than an LSN profile ever would be) in this context.
Date: January 24th, 2007 6:57 AM Author: flushed crusty patrolman mediation
Yeah... that's why we used the grad cafe code for this instead of just porting over PRstats/LSN. We'll probably let people create "usernames" so they won't have to manually repeat the same information whenever they post a result (school, grades, etc. would be saved) as well as implement other tweaks like improved searching, but actually posting usernames would probably just cause people to not report results out of fear.
EDIT: The page is obviously going to get very very big, so the links on the left will be clickable so you can scroll down to the relevant part of the page.
Date: January 24th, 2007 9:39 AM Author: outnumbered resort sandwich
visual representation of information, my friend. I think charts, graphs, and tables will be nice. And multiple columns to make better use of space! (this would be easier if you got rid of the third column with affiliate links)