Key Findings
- Average E-E-A-T score: 4.5 out of 8. Most law firm websites implement roughly half of the trust signals Google looks for, leaving significant room for improvement.
- Attorney bios lead at 83.8% adoption, followed closely by social proof (79.9%) and publications (79.5%). These three signals are table stakes for competitive firms.
- Bar numbers are the biggest gap. Only 20.1% of sites display verifiable attorney bar numbers, despite this being one of the simplest and strongest trust signals to add.
- 15.5% of sites scored zero -- no detectable E-E-A-T signals at all. Meanwhile, only 2.6% achieved a perfect score of 8 out of 8.
- The most common score was 6 (23.4% of sites), suggesting a clear ceiling where most firms plateau before implementing the harder-to-add signals like bar numbers, trust badges, and professional association listings.
About This Research
E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. It is the framework Google's Search Quality Raters use to evaluate whether a page deserves to rank. For law firms, E-E-A-T is especially critical because legal services fall under Google's "Your Money or Your Life" (YMYL) category, where content quality standards are highest.
Google does not assign a numeric E-E-A-T score. But it does look for concrete signals that demonstrate a firm's credibility: detailed attorney bios, verifiable bar numbers, documented case results, industry awards, client testimonials, published articles, trust badges, and professional association memberships. The more of these signals a site presents, the more reasons Google has to surface it in search results.
We wanted to know how many law firms actually implement these signals. In October 2023, we scanned 303 law firm websites across 25 of America's fastest-growing mid-size markets and scored each site on 8 specific E-E-A-T dimensions. The results reveal a wide gap between what Google expects and what most firms deliver.
Methodology
We collected the top-ranking law firm websites from Google organic search results across 25 high-growth U.S. markets and 2 practice areas (personal injury and family law), yielding 303 unique domains after deduplication.
For each site, we scanned the homepage and key interior pages for the presence or absence of 8 E-E-A-T signals:
- Attorney bios -- Named attorney profiles with credentials, education, or experience details.
- Social proof -- Client reviews, testimonials, or embedded review widgets (Google, Avvo, etc.).
- Publications -- Blog posts, articles, legal guides, or other original content published by the firm.
- Case results -- Documented settlements, verdicts, or case outcomes with specific dollar amounts or descriptions.
- Awards -- Recognitions such as Super Lawyers, Best Lawyers, Martindale-Hubbell ratings, or local awards.
- Trust badges -- Third-party trust indicators like BBB accreditation, SSL seals, or verified membership badges.
- Professional associations -- Memberships in bar associations, trial lawyer associations, or specialty legal organizations.
- Bar numbers -- Specific state bar license numbers displayed alongside attorney profiles.
Each signal scored 1 point if present, 0 if absent, giving each site a total score from 0 to 8. Detection used a combination of keyword pattern matching, DOM element analysis, and structured data parsing.
The Numbers at a Glance
Signal Adoption Rates
The 8 signals fall into three clear tiers. Attorney bios, social proof, and publications are near-universal among competitive firms. Case results and awards sit in the middle. Trust badges, professional associations, and bar numbers remain significantly underadopted.
| Rank | E-E-A-T Signal | Sites | Adoption |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Attorney Bios | 254 | 83.8% |
| 2 | Social Proof | 242 | 79.9% |
| 3 | Publications | 241 | 79.5% |
| 4 | Case Results | 185 | 61.1% |
| 5 | Awards | 165 | 54.5% |
| 6 | Trust Badges | 121 | 39.9% |
| 7 | Professional Associations | 93 | 30.7% |
| 8 | Bar Numbers | 61 | 20.1% |
The drop-off from signal 3 to signal 4 is sharp: publications sit at 79.5%, but case results fall to 61.1%. From there, each subsequent signal loses another 7 to 20 percentage points. The bottom three signals (trust badges, professional associations, bar numbers) are adopted by fewer than 40% of sites.
Score Distribution
The distribution of E-E-A-T scores reveals a bimodal pattern. There is a large cluster at 0 (sites with no signals at all) and a peak at 6 (the "plateau" where firms have covered the basics but stopped short of the hardest signals).
| Score | Sites | % of Total |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | 47 | 15.5% |
| 1 | 1 | 0.3% |
| 2 | 10 | 3.3% |
| 3 | 20 | 6.6% |
| 4 | 43 | 14.2% |
| 5 | 51 | 16.8% |
| 6 | 71 | 23.4% |
| 7 | 52 | 17.2% |
| 8 | 8 | 2.6% |
Nearly 1 in 6 sites (15.5%) scored zero. These are typically directory listings, single-page sites, or firms with minimal web presence. At the other end, only 8 sites out of 303 (2.6%) achieved a perfect score of 8 -- implementing every signal we measured.
The most populated score is 6, held by 23.4% of sites. This suggests a natural ceiling: most firms implement attorney bios, social proof, publications, case results, and awards (the top 5 signals), but stop before adding trust badges, professional associations, or bar numbers.
The Bar Number Gap
Bar numbers are the lowest-adoption signal at 20.1%, yet they are arguably the easiest to implement. Every licensed attorney has a bar number. Adding it to a bio page takes minutes. And the signal it sends is powerful: a verifiable bar number confirms the attorney is licensed and in good standing, directly supporting the Expertise and Trustworthiness pillars of E-E-A-T.
The gap is especially notable when compared to the top signal. Attorney bios appear on 83.8% of sites, but only 20.1% of those bios include bar numbers. That means roughly 4 out of 5 firms go to the effort of creating attorney profiles but leave off the single most verifiable credential those profiles could contain.
For firms looking to differentiate, bar numbers represent low-hanging fruit. In a competitive market where 80% of your rivals already have attorney bios and testimonials, adding a bar number is one of the few remaining signals that most competitors have not yet implemented.
What Top Sites Do Differently
We compared sites scoring 7 or 8 (60 sites, 19.8% of the sample) against sites scoring 0 to 2 (58 sites, 19.1%). The differences illustrate what separates firms that invest in trust signals from those that do not.
Top-tier sites (score 7-8) share a clear profile:
- 100% have attorney bios, social proof, and publications. These three signals are universal among top performers.
- Bar numbers appear on 40%+ of top-tier sites -- double the overall average of 20.1%. This is the signal that most differentiates top-tier from mid-tier.
- Professional associations are present on 60%+ of top sites, compared to just 30.7% overall. Membership badges from organizations like the American Association for Justice or state trial lawyer associations are common.
- Trust badges (BBB, SSL, verified reviews) appear on 70%+ of top sites, nearly double the 39.9% overall adoption rate.
Bottom-tier sites (score 0-2) are defined by absence. Most have no attorney bios, no testimonials, no blog, and no case results. Many are directory-style listings or placeholder sites. The gap between a score of 2 and a score of 6 often comes down to four additions: attorney bios, client testimonials, a blog, and documented case results.
Limitations
- Automated detection: Signal detection used keyword matching and DOM analysis. Some signals may be present in formats our scanner did not recognize (e.g., bar numbers embedded in images rather than text).
- Binary scoring: Each signal is scored as present or absent. We did not measure quality or depth -- a firm with 1 blog post and a firm with 500 receive the same "publications" credit.
- Homepage bias: While we scanned interior pages where possible, some signals may exist on pages our crawler did not reach.
- Point-in-time snapshot: Data was collected in October 2023. Websites change frequently, and adoption rates may have shifted since collection.
- Geographic focus: Our 25 markets are fast-growing mid-size cities. Results may differ in major metros or rural areas where competitive dynamics are different.