On this page · 5 sections
Law firms, agencies and researchers who want to understand a legal market usually piece together several sources: an industry report, a list of lawyers, a competitive-intelligence platform, court data, keyword tools and government statistics. This page sets them side by side, using only what each source says on its own public pages, with the date we read them.
Key facts
- Most commercial legal-intelligence platforms here sell access by request or demo and serve large firms, litigators or recruiters.
- Court-data services work case by case; keyword tools work search by search; government statistics count employers by county.
- Openly licensed sources with an API are rarer: government statistics are public domain, and Probative’s datasets are CC BY 4.0 with a DOI for each version and an MCP server.
- Where a page is silent, the table says “Not stated on the page we read” rather than guess.
Which source answers which question?
- Where are potential clients, county by county? Government statistics and Probative’s demand datasets: crashes, court filings, complaints to federal agencies, and the people who may need a lawyer.
- How many firms and lawyers already serve a market? BLS and Census counts of law offices, and Probative’s competition datasets, which are built from them. Lawyer lists such as those sold on AWS Data Exchange name individual lawyers.
- What are the largest firms doing? Telemetry, SurePoint Legal Insights, ALM (now Centellic) and Law360 Pulse follow firms, lawyers, hiring and rankings.
- What happens in court? Lex Machina, Trellis, UniCourt, Docket Alarm and CourtListener work from court records.
- What do people search for, and what do clicks cost? Google Keyword Planner and Semrush.
- How do firms bill and collect? The Clio Legal Trends Report.
- What may a law firm’s ads say? Probative’s compliance datasets: state ad rules, bar filing, ethics opinions and ad-platform policies.
What does each source cover?
| Source | What it covers | Geography and unit | How often it updates |
|---|---|---|---|
| Probative open data (this site) | Consumer-law markets: demand (crashes, court filings, agency complaints, people who may need a lawyer), supply (law offices, lawyers per resident), state ad rules, ethics opinions, fee rules and prices | United States and every state, and county by county in many datasets | Set per dataset (monthly, quarterly, yearly, as sources publish), each with its last-checked date |
| Clio Legal Trends Report | A yearly report on how law firms work, bill, collect and grow, from aggregated, anonymized Clio data and surveys of legal professionals and consumers | United States, with lawyer rates by state; separate reports for Canada, Australia, and the UK and Ireland | Yearly, with editions back to 2016 |
| AWS Data Exchange lawyer lists (example: RelevantData, Lawyers: Business in the US) | Lists of individual lawyers with practice areas, contact details and social links; the listing we read has 74,000+ business lawyers, and the same seller lists other practice areas | All 50 states and DC, one record per lawyer | Monthly |
| Telemetry (by Briefly) | Signals read from the public websites of 1,200+ law firms: practices, people, matters, clients and hiring | Firm and office level, centred on the large firms that bill most large-firm revenue worldwide | A weekly crawl; it says recording began recently |
| SurePoint Legal Insights (formerly Leopard Solutions) | Law firm and attorney data: hiring, growth, market position, relationships and alumni | Firm and attorney level | Described as real-time and historical |
| ALM, now Centellic (Law.com Compass, Am Law rankings) | Rankings and data on the largest law firms: revenue, headcount, profitability and practice trends | Firm level: the Am Law 100 and 200, NLJ 500 and Global 200 | Not stated on the page we read |
| Law360 Pulse (LexisNexis) | Business-of-law news, firm rankings and survey reports, combining Law360 journalism with LexisNexis data | National, plus state and regional coverage | Daily news and alerts |
| Lex Machina (LexisNexis) | Litigation analytics: judges, parties, counsel, experts, outcomes and damages | All 94 federal district courts, 13 courts of appeal and selected state courts, case by case | Not stated on the page we read |
| Trellis, UniCourt and Docket Alarm | Court records and dockets with search and analytics; Trellis focuses on state trial courts | Case level, in the federal and state courts each one covers | UniCourt says it aggregates court data daily |
| CourtListener (Free Law Project) | Case law, federal dockets from PACER, judges and financial disclosures | Federal and state courts, case by case | Database replication is instant, the APIs are fast and bulk files are slower, by its own table |
| Google Keyword Planner | Estimates of monthly searches for keywords and the cost to target them | The locations you target in Google Ads | Forecasts refreshed daily, based on the last 7–10 days |
| Semrush | Keyword research, rank tracking, competitor analysis and AI-search visibility for websites | The websites and locations you track | Keyword positions tracked daily |
| BLS Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages and Census County Business Patterns | Counts of employers, jobs and pay by industry, law offices included; Probative’s law-offices dataset is built from them | County, metro, state and national | QCEW quarterly; County Business Patterns yearly (latest data: 2023) |
How can each source be used and reused?
| Source | Access and published price | Licence and reuse | Citable DOI | API | MCP server |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Probative open data (this site) | Free; no sign-up, no key | CC BY 4.0: reuse, including commercially, with credit | Yes, for each released version of every dataset | Yes: static JSON and CSV with an OpenAPI description, no key | Yes, free, no sign-in |
| Clio Legal Trends Report | Download form on the page; no price shown | Not stated on the page we read | None shown | None listed | None listed |
| AWS Data Exchange lawyer lists (example: RelevantData, Lawyers: Business in the US) | $4,000.00 a month on a 1-month contract, for the listing we read | The seller’s licence agreement (EULA), accepted on subscribing | None shown | Files delivered through AWS Data Exchange | None listed |
| Telemetry (by Briefly) | Request access; no price published | Not stated on the page we read | None shown | It says data can be exported or queried from your own agents | An MCP endpoint is one delivery option it lists as under discussion |
| SurePoint Legal Insights (formerly Leopard Solutions) | Demo request; no price published | Not stated on the page we read | None shown | None listed | None listed |
| ALM, now Centellic (Law.com Compass, Am Law rankings) | No price published | Not stated on the page we read | None shown | None listed | None listed |
| Law360 Pulse (LexisNexis) | Subscription; no price on the page we read | Not stated on the page we read | None shown | None listed | None listed |
| Lex Machina (LexisNexis) | Demo request; no price published | Not stated on the page we read | None shown | Yes, an API is offered | None listed |
| Trellis, UniCourt and Docket Alarm | Docket Alarm: a free tier, $39.99 a month plus per-use fees, or $99 per user a month. UniCourt: $59, $199 or $399 a month, with API access by quote. Trellis: prices appear after sign-up. | Not stated on the pages we read | None shown | UniCourt: yes, paid | None listed |
| CourtListener (Free Law Project) | Bulk data files; APIs as a membership benefit or under commercial agreements | Not stated on the page we read | None shown | Yes: REST APIs, webhooks and database replication | Yes |
| Google Keyword Planner | Inside a Google Ads account, once billing details are entered | Not stated on the page we read | None shown | Not covered on the page we read | None listed |
| Semrush | SEO plan $139 a month, Starter $199 a month, Pro+ $299 a month, billed monthly | Not stated on the pages we read | None shown | An add-on to the Business tier, paid in API units | MCP access is listed in the Starter plan |
| BLS Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages and Census County Business Patterns | Free downloads and public APIs | Public domain (U.S. government works); BLS asks to be credited as the source | None shown | Yes: the BLS Public Data API and the Census Data API | None listed |
What Probative’s data does not cover
Probative’s datasets count and describe markets; they do not name firms, lawyers or clients, and they do not analyse individual cases or judges. For named-firm intelligence, lateral moves or litigation analytics, the commercial platforms above are built for that work. For keyword volumes and click costs, use a keyword tool. Every Probative dataset, its version and its DOI is listed on the legal marketing datasets page.
How we compared
We read each source’s own public pages on the date shown, logged out, without filling in a form, requesting a demo or creating an account. We quote or summarize what each page says. Where a price, licence or feature is not on the page, we write “Not stated on the page we read” or “None listed”; that means we did not find it, not that it does not exist. For AWS Data Exchange we read one listing as an example; other sellers’ listings differ. Probative’s row is built from our own dataset registry.
Every name here is a trademark of its owner, used only to identify the source. Probative Growth is not affiliated with any of them. If anything here is out of date, email hello@probativegrowth.com with the public source, and we will correct it and log the change on our corrections page. We also compare marketing companies on our comparisons page.
Every page we read
- Clio Legal Trends Report: Clio, Legal Trends Report (read October 28, 2026)
- AWS Data Exchange lawyer lists (example: RelevantData, Lawyers: Business in the US): AWS Marketplace, RelevantData, Lawyers:Business in the US (read October 28, 2026)
- Telemetry (by Briefly): Telemetry, home page and questions (read October 28, 2026)
- SurePoint Legal Insights (formerly Leopard Solutions): SurePoint, Legal Insights (read October 28, 2026)
- ALM, now Centellic (Law.com Compass, Am Law rankings): Centellic, Competitive Intelligence for law firms (read October 28, 2026)
- Law360 Pulse (LexisNexis): Law360 Pulse, About (read October 28, 2026)
- Lex Machina (LexisNexis): Lex Machina, product page (read October 28, 2026)
- Trellis, UniCourt and Docket Alarm: Trellis, home page; UniCourt, Pricing; Docket Alarm, Pricing (read October 28, 2026)
- CourtListener (Free Law Project): Free Law Project, Legal APIs and Data (read October 28, 2026)
- Google Keyword Planner: Google Ads Help, Use Keyword Planner (read October 28, 2026)
- Semrush: Semrush, Plans and pricing; Semrush Knowledge Base, API (read October 28, 2026)
- BLS Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages and Census County Business Patterns: BLS, Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages; Census Bureau, County Business Patterns; BLS, Copyright information; BLS, Public Data API; Census Bureau, Available APIs (read October 28, 2026)
Last reviewed by our data desk.
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