Although the largest U.S. law firms have average annual technology operating budgets of almost $10 million - about 17,000 per lawyer - market penetration by most legal software products is still relatively moderate, according to a new Legal Technology Market Assessment study released today by ALM Research and Cogent Research. The study, by Cambridge, Mass.-based Cogent and New York-based ALM Research, measured user satisfaction, market penetration and brand loyalty to technology products in five legal technology areas: case/management, document management, electronic discovery, client development and online research. Online research tools proved to be the most widely available and used technologies at law firms, according to the study. The study also documents the proliferation of free legal information on the Web. The average respondent spends about 40 percent of his or her research time using search engines such as Google, to find free, basic information.