The Legal Executive

Reporting on CILEX and the legal executive profession

What people actually ask

Searching for each of 3,101 law firms by name returned, alongside the results, the questions Google reports people also ask. There were 16,284 of them. Grouped by subject rather than wording, this is what somebody looking for a lawyer in England and Wales is unsure about.

QuestionFirms it came up for
Which are the biggest law firms in a town? 641
What does a lawyer cost, and is the first meeting free? 540
Is a solicitor a lawyer? 337
How do you check that a lawyer is regulated? 178
What is a chartered legal executive? 8
Is a chartered legal executive a lawyer? 3

The count is the number of different firms whose search results raised the question, not how many people asked it. A question that appears against 600 different firms is a question about the profession; one that appears against a single firm is a question about that firm. Google's own panels are not reproduced here — only the count, and our answer.

Worth noticing what is missing. "Is a solicitor a lawyer?" surfaced against hundreds of firms. The same question about chartered legal executives — a profession of 7,727 authorised practitioners — surfaced against three. Nobody is asking, because most people do not know there is anything to ask about.