Premonition: A Statistical Take On Law Firm Rankings

US-based legal analytics company, Premonition, has updated its 2017 UK High Courts Report to include the top ten law firms and barristers by case win rate.

As noted in its accompanying report, Premonition observes:

While the top 10 includes some big names in commercial litigation that one would expect to see in the UK, such as Herbert Smith Freehills and Allen & Overy, it does not include several other firms that are usually well-regarded in legal directory sections for commercial litigation, such as that of the well-known directory, Chambers. For example, global law firm Clifford Chance, which Chambers ranks as an ‘elite’ firm in the UK for commercial disputes, does not make it into the Premonition top 10 based on public win rate data for the Commercial Court.”

Here at SavageNash HQ, we can (and do) argue all day long about the varying accuracy and usefulness of the myriad law firm rankings out there in the market. Our conclusion is that whilst there are some really great ones, there’s an awful lot of utter rubbish.

Premonition’s take on the area certainly does away with the criticisms often levelled at traditional directories that they rely too much on anecdotal evidence rather than substantive results. This is to be applauded – in my view, placing too much weight on ‘market commentary’, at the expense of taking the time and effort to properly assess the work firms are actually doing, can seriously skew rankings.

But, I wonder whether Premonition’s approach misses a whole load of really important unquantifiable criteria (quality of client service, loyalty, depth of bench, complexity of work rather than simply counting the number of victories) that Chambers, Legal 500 and others successfully capture through actually speaking to clients?

For full information, here’s the link: https://premonition.ai/premonition-releases-top-10-win-rate-rankings-uk-lawyers/