Web sites of the Legal "solutions" providers

Image via WikipediaI'm currently doing the website for my new company (paying a design company lots of money to do it!), I've been doing a little bit of research on what the big legal solutions providers web sites are like, what they have on their sites, whether the front page has marketing info or logins to the products and how the sites are structured. Thought I'd share the feedback here.

First up we have LexisNexis, their main site generally is mostly marketing gumph, lots of text no one is ever going to read and lots of links to various areas. To find a product you have to in through via your sector (Legal, Corporate etc.) and actually finding the login area to a product is nigh on impossible. Interestingly no favicon shows up (the little logo that hows up next the the address on your browser). Seems to be more about selling themselves than anything else.
Grade: C - Back to the drawing board please.

Next we have PLC who go for a completely different tack. They have the login link directly on the front page and you can access each area directly from there. Sure it's pretty busy and the design looks a little tired now and they've basically just crammed more and more on there, but it gives a "user" directly what they want, and also allows you to quickly find information about each product. I think they are able to do this because they don't play in many sectors, like LN does. Also has a favicon.
Grade: B - Could maybe do with a quick face-lift.

Now it's Solcara's turn. They don't have login's to products of course, but theirs is, but it's got a clean interface with everything you'd need on there, quick access to information about their products well delineated and contact information right there on the front page. I rather like the design too, products have their own colour coding which changes the whole site colour as you go into the section covering that product. Slightly meaningless favicon.
Grade: A - Stands out from the crowd and does the job.

I'll cover Sweet and Maxwell's next. Now is it just me or has this one changed recently? It was rubbish before but the redesign (something to do with a Thomson Reuters re-brand?), seems to have made it a little nicer looking and more modern looking. Had a couple of broken links in there, but it might be teething problems if the site is new. Good access to information on each product (though not why they are separated into different products - surely it's all legal information). The main focus of the site seems to be selling books interestingly. No favicon.
Grade: B - Rather generic nothing to make it stand out.

Up next? Recommind. Not a lot to say here to be honest. It's a website, some press releases, links to products/solutions. Design is pretty nice, but nothing to write home about. No favicon.
Grade: B - Generic but clean

The last one I'm going to cover is Tikit. Again, much like the Recommind one it's a pretty standard marketing website, no favicon. Not sure what the image is all about - why an Obama look-a-like with a telephone headset standing over a PC?
Grade: C - Try something a little cutting edge.

Oviously have concentrated on the UK sites, but you don't want to get me started on the LexisNexis.com site!