Fewer medium-sized firms in Belgium
The gap between individual firms and group firms is more marked in Belgium than in France: there are both more individual firms (88% in Belgium compared to 73% in France) and larger group firms: the average size of a group firm is 8 lawyers in Belgium compared to 5 lawyers in France. This is partly explained by the importance of international firms in Belgium (there are more large groups of international lawyers represented in Brussels than in Paris, for a much lower total number of firms).
Websites
On average, 1 in 3 French law firms has a website (35%), exactly as in Belgium. But the equipment strategy seems different in the two countries.
Only 1 in 30 Belgian individual firms is equipped. It is as if a Belgian lawyer working alone considered that he did not need a website. On the other hand, almost 100% of Belgian group firms are equipped, even the smallest ones: as soon as lawyers are grouped together, a common website seems essential to them.
In France, the rate of website equipment is also closely linked to the size of the firm, but in a much more progressive way: the equipment of individual firms is not insignificant, since 1 firm in 5 is equipped (an equipment rate 6 times higher than in Belgium). On the other hand, small group firms are far from being all equipped in France, with an equipment rate slightly lower than 60% for firms of 2 or 3 lawyers (100% in Belgium). And in France, we find group firms bringing together more than 10 lawyers who do not have a website: this does not seem to exist in Belgium.
These differences may reflect a supply policy (with perhaps less systematic site offers in Belgium than in France). They probably reflect slightly different practices in the two countries.
The Belgian collective firm considers that a website is an essential element of existence today for a legal structure that wishes to inspire confidence. Some French firms have a different reasoning. In Belgium, there are no large group firms that consider, like some French firms, that the absence of a website is a positive way of distinguishing themselves.
Learn more at http://www.village-justice.com/articles/equipement-numerique-des-cabinets-avocat-comparaison-France-Belgique,24409.html#k5eZFP9qfdBGtdzb.99