Having read about Google Trends, I reflexively researched several key terms for this blog. Searchers with Google have had a steady propensity to look during the last several years for “legal department;” searches for “law department” have been tailing off slightly; and those for “general counsel” have held steady. Globally, people searched for “law department” 45 percent of how often they searched for “legal department.” In the United States, the ratio favored “legal department” even more, 3.5 to 1 (See my post of May 24, 2005: difference between “legal department” and “law department”; slightly more hits for “legal department.”). These are searches by website.
As if that weren’t exciting enough, I note that relative to the size of the country, the most common locations of searchers for “legal department” are South Africa (by far), then the US, India and the UK. By comparison, searchers for “law department” came from India (by far), then the US, Ireland and South Africa at about even percentages. The term “general counsel,” to complete these scintillating findings, was searched overwhelmingly by people in the US, followed in roughly equal ratios by Australia, Canada, and the UK.
My usual facility to conjure up fascinating conclusions and insightful comments fails me.