What’s Next For Chambers & Partners? Private Equity Fund Buys Leading Legal Directory Publisher

Michael Chambers, founder and owner of one of the world’s leading legal directory publishers, has exited the business, doing what many in the legal market have suspected has been on the cards for some years now.

A team from Inflexion, a London-based mid-market private equity company, has bought Chambers & Partners for an undisclosed sum. That team was led by legal technology entrepreneur Mark Wyatt, who will run the company as its CEO. Steve Halbert, the former head of UK M&A at KPMG, will be chairman of the new company.

The intention is to drive forward the digital side of the business, and to push for further global expansion.

In my view, it was only a matter of time, and I see this as an interesting move for a number of reasons.

The digital developments could be particularly exciting. At the basic level, a revamp of Chambers’ website is needed. Despite recent improvements, it’s been rudimentary (at best) for many years. I’ve lost count of the number of conversations I’ve had with legal marketers about how outdated the website looks, and how much more could be done to improve Chambers’ online presence.

Beyond that, though, I hope that Inflexion’s intended investment in technology will reach other areas of the business – the research process, most obviously.  To take two examples:

  • The use of algorithms — working alongside, rather than replacing, existing ‘human’ research — might go a long way toward making sure the rankings more accurately reflect market realities. Basing the rankings less on unscientific comparisons of ‘market feedback’, and more on which firms are actually doing the best work and getting the best results, would surely lead to better market analysis.
  • The use of technology to address the ‘time lag’ issues inherent in Chambers’ current research process would be a vast improvement. The way the process works now, by the time the rankings are published, they are based on work firms have done almost two years previously. If I had a dollar for every time a firm has complained to me that, “these rankings were accurate 4 years ago, but the market has completely changed since then”…. well, you know the rest.

At the most basic level, then, I fervently hope that any significant investments in technology will be to make sure Chambers & Partners continues to do what it’s supposed to do: publish the most accurate, up-to-date, rankings and analysis of the legal market. It would be a great shame — and a wasted opportunity — if all investments were simply to cut costs and increase profitability.

As a closing thought, I would be very interested to see whether John Pritchard, owner of Legalease (which publishes The Legal 500 — Chambers & Partners’ closest competitor/arch rival in the global legal directories market) will be following Michael Chambers’ lead in the not-too-distant future. If I were in his shoes, I’d be eyeing this latest development very carefully.

 

 

 

Above The Law Launches Client-based Law Firm Ranking

U.S.-based legal news website Above The Law announced earlier this week the launch of its “Top Outside Counsel” ranking. The results of the survey – produced in conjunction with litigation finance firm Lake Whillans – can be seen here.

According to Above The Law’s stated methodology, more than 1,000 in-house lawyers, from nearly 500 companies and 50+ cities, responded to a survey providing their opinion of their companies’ outside law firms.

The Above The Law survey asked counsel two direct questions: 1) “Which law firms does your company engage for legal services?” and 2) “Please indicate the highest level legal work for which your company will engage the particular firm(s).” The survey defined the  “levels” of work along a four-point scale: (1) Cost-efficient, bulk tasks; (2) Routine matters; (3) High-value, complex matters; and (4) “Bet-the-company” matters.

Above The Law then ranked firms in two tiers, comprising the 50 firms with the highest mean ratings based on this scale. Only firms with a minimum threshold number of ratings—as adjusted for firm size—were eligible for inclusion.

So far, so good. As we all know, law firm rankings are big business, and everyone seems to be wanting a piece of the pie – with varying degrees of success.

However, I would question the usefulness of this ranking for a couple of reasons.

First, relying on client feedback to generate law firm rankings is hardly groundbreaking. Chambers & Partners and The Legal 500 have been doing just that for years, with tremendous success. So has BTI Consulting Group with its well-regarded surveys such as the “BTI Client Service A-Team” list. So in this regard, I don’t see that Above The Law’s new ranking brings anything new or innovative to what’s out there already.

Secondly – and here’s the real issue for me – in my view Above The law has massively hedged its bets by only creating two tiers, each containing 25 law firms.

Chambers and The Legal 500 continue to dominate the traditional rankings market for a number of reasons. But to my mind, a key reason for their success is that it’s tough to get ranked in the top tier. This is because, generally speaking, the tiers get shorter – more ‘elite’ – the higher up you go. In some cases, the top tier only contains one firm. Rarely are there more than five firms ranked in the top tier.

This means that for firms ranked in the top tier in Chambers or The Legal 500, there’s an immediate and powerful marketing message: “In Chambers & Partners – which relies heavily on client feedback – we are one of only three firms ranked in Band 1 for Appellate Law in the U.S.” Or even more compelling: “We are one of the top three appellate litigation firms in the U.S.

This bolder, put-your-money-where-your-mouth-is approach that Chambers or The Legal 500 have adopted also reflects well on them: they are saying, “we’ve done extensive research and here are the small handful of firms we believe are the genuine market leaders”.

And this is where Above The Law’s rankings miss a trick, in my view. While I agree with Above The Law’s statement that, “their [in-house counsel’s] opinion is a true measure of law firm prestige”, I don’t see that a top tier containing 24 other firms is much to brag about.

Perhaps this is just a first step in Above The Law’s foray into the world of qualitative rankings, and they plan to finesse the methodology – and the results – with future efforts. Frankly, I think they need to.

IFLR1000 Expands, Adding U.S. State-wide Rankings

 

The next edition of legal directory IFLR1000 will feature considerably expanded coverage of the U.S. market, adding rankings and editorial in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.

IFLR1000 – Euromoney Institutional Investor’s flagship legal directory, which is now in its 27th year – is unique in that it focuses its research exclusively on the corporate and finance areas. This sets it apart from, for example, the Legal 500 and Chambersguides, which cover the full range of legal services (employment, real estate, life sciences etc.)

IFLR1000‘s expanded editorial will include rankings and editorial in four core practice areas: Banking, Capital Markets, M&A, and Restructuring & Insolvency. However, the depth of the market in each state will determine which areas appear in each state – it’s unlikely that all four practice areas will be covered in all 50 states.

The state-wide rankings will sit alongside the nationwide rankings. As is the case with Chambers, firms are of course able to submit both for the state-wide sections and the nationwide sections (for the time being at least, Legal 500 prefers to adopt the nationwide-only model, and it’s working well for them).

IFLR1000‘s rankings are based on three criteria: quality and quantity of deals, peer feedback, and client feedback.

A few things firms should bear in mind when putting submissions together (this according to IFLR1000‘s press release on the expanded coverage):

  • Deals should be focused on the state in question. They should have been completed primarily by lawyers based in that state, and governed by that state’s laws.
  • Deals involving two of more states can be submitted in each individual state submission.
  • International cross-border deals should be submitted as part of the nationwide research process.
  • Firms can submit deals that have been completed, on or which they have started work on, since January 2017.

Follow these links for more information on how to take part, as well as IFLR1000‘s practice area definitions.

My Take On This

I applaud Euromoney for taking steps to expand and improve its coverage of the world’s biggest legal market. I have felt for a while now that concerted efforts by both Legal 500 and Chambers to hone their research processes and engage fully with corporate counsel have meant those two organizations have pulled far ahead of the competition, in the U.S. and elsewhere. IFLR1000 is, in my view, playing catch-up.

The rankings/legal directory space is becoming more and more crowded, and firms are increasingly reluctant – not to mention unable – to submit to everything. At SavageNash Communications, we’ve come across many large firms who are significantly cutting back on the number of rankings publications they submit to, and instead are selecting a small handful of market leaders on which to focus their efforts.

This is the challenge IFLR1000 will face.

Strong, deep research and compelling editorial coverage are absolutely essential to success of any new directory in this already overcrowded market. I sincerely hope IFLR1000 has significantly expanded its editorial team to handle the large amount of extra research this new venture will require.

As ever, please feel free to get in touch if we can help.

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/

Chambers: How To Request Adding A New Category

A question we’ve been asked a lot over the past few weeks is, “how do we suggest to Chambers that they should add a new ranking table in state X/practice area X?”. As Chambers USA is gearing up for its 2018 research cycle (yes, we can hear the screams of joy/pain from here), it’s a good time to lay out a few guidelines. Please get in touch if you’d like further advice – we’d love to help.

The key things when proposing new categories is that (1) you don’t appear purely self-serving, and (2) you convey how this will be a useful resource for corporate counsel (Chambers‘ primary intended readership). An expansion of those considerations is below – we’ve used a hypothetical Texas Leisure & Hospitality table as an example throughout.

Process: Send a one or two-page proposal (no more than that – as ever, the more concise the better) to the relevant Chambers editor, explaining why the addition of a new category makes sense based on the criteria below.

Timing: Ideally before the research cycle starts, so the editors have time to consider the proposal and work it into their deadlines if they decide to go ahead. Given the current USA research cycle is essentially underway, the sooner the better.

1. Why would CLIENTS find a separate table for Texas Leisure & Hospitality useful?
Note CAPS above: remember that Chambers writes predominantly for corporate counsel, not for law firms. The tables therefore need to be useful for corporate counsel first and foremost.

Things to consider might be – why do clients need specific advice in Texas Leisure & Hospitality? For example, does Texas have a distinct set of regulations surrounding the leisure & hospitality industry that make specializing in that state essential for doing deals there, as opposed to simply having a strong nationwide Leisure & Hospitality practice?

2. Is the Texas Leisure & Hospitality market big enough?
Chambers will be reluctant to add a table where the niche is so small as to be insignificant. Do you have stats that show overall year-on-year deal volumes? The type of clients doing deals in the area?

Your aim should be to show Chambers, “look, here’s this multibillion-dollar industry in this jurisdiction, deals are numerous, complex and sizeable, involving major corporates/banks, and you’re missing it”.

3. Is there a distinct and sizeable group of firms that would comprise this table?
Obviously a firm is unlikely to suggest an additional table in an area where the firm has no chance of being ranked. But Chambers will take a dim view of a firm that says, “we think you should add a new Texas Leisure & Hospitality category – oh, and by the way, we are basically the only law firm that operates in this space – we’re so great that nobody else gets a look-in”. That’s not going to get you anywhere.

You need to prove, ideally through hard evidence (league tables could be one obvious way, though there are many more), that there’s a group of firms – I’d suggest at least 5 – competing for a significant amount of high-end work, who are all known as leaders in the area among clients, who all have partner-level expertise based in that jurisdiction, who all represent major players in the market, and who all play lead roles on major matters each year.

4. Consider a joint proposal
The most effective way of not being self-serving is to do a joint proposal with other firms in the market that might have a stake in this table. Even better, team up with amenable corporate counsel who can reinforce the message to Chambers that Texas Leisure & Hospitality is a notable omission from Chambers‘ coverage that should be rectified.

If there are a couple of specialist firms who ONLY do this type of work and who are therefore missing out on the chance of a Chambers ranking altogether (because of a lack of an appropriate table), think about approaching them too. More ranked firms theoretically means more potential sales targets for Chambers, so you’re appealing to the business case too (call me cynical, but it’s still a valid consideration I think).

Legal 500 EMEA 2018: Deadlines, Guidelines Now Available + Editor Insights

Attention all European, Middle East and Africa law firms: The Legal 500 has just published its 2018 edition submission deadlines, which can be accessed here. The key dates for your diary are as follows:

  • Referee spreadsheet deadline: 4 August 2017
  • Editorial submission deadline: 14 August 2017
  • Law firm interview period begins: 4 September 2017
  • Contacting referees: during September (precise date to be determined by number of referees received to contact – law firms will be informed one week before we contact referees)

There are big changes afoot editorially at The Legal 500, which we reported earlier today (please see here). We caught up with EMEA Editor Ella Marshall to discuss changes affecting the upcoming EMEA edition.

Are the changes to the editorial coverage of the UK guide being replicated in EMEA also?

We’re expanding content in the same way as the UK. Increases will be dictated by the availability of data, but we expect to deliver around three times the content for the largest and/or more sophisticated markets and will provide editorial content for every single firm that is ranked.

ella_marshallThe content will be online only, so the EMEA 2017 edition is, in fact, a collector’s edition!

In terms of new practice areas etc, what should firms look out for this year?

We are continuing our ongoing expansion of our Africa coverage to reflect demand from website users: this year, we’re adding Botswana, Senegal and Uganda to our coverage.

There are no Regional Summary sections this year (i.e. none for CEE, Africa or Middle East) because we’re now covering more markets and more practice areas in those markets than we were 3 years ago when we introduced the summaries as a catch-all.

We have also added English Bar: DIFC (Dubai International Finance Center) to the coverage this year as part of the UAE coverage to reflect the growing trend of work arising in the free zone.

The expansion of the word count has also enabled us to add practice areas to cover gaps in other markets, particularly with the introduction of more coverage of competition law, employment law and corporate/white-collar criminal law and compliance.

Law firms are strongly advised to check the list of practice areas carefully and not assume that the practice areas are the same as last year – there may have been additions or other amendments. We change the coverage every year to cater to market demand. New practice areas are marked as “NEW” or “RENAMED” or other appropriate indicators.

Legal 500 London research – editor insights

The Legal 500’s UK research process is now underway in London. We caught up with Legal 500 UK editor Alex Boyes for a quick run-down of what’s new for this year in London. Most notable among these being significantly expanded editorial coverage of all ranked firms. Alex also provides a reminder of key things firms should be doing to ensure their references respond to Legal 500’s researchers.

The Legal 500 London research is about to begin, with the regional research having concluded. Is the London content also being expanded this year, and what is the rationale behind the change?

Yes, that’s correct. This year, we’re undertaking a large-scale expansion of our UK Solicitors editorial content. The aim of this expansion is to enable researchers to utilise the significant amount of information obtained through the submission/interview process more effectively, conveying more of the key strengths of a practice and highlighting the success stories of that year.

In previous years, researchers have had to boil down sizeable chunks of data into very small editorial descriptions of firms and their practices, primarily due to the constraints of producing hard copies. In many instances, firms in the bottom tiers of our tables received no editorial at all. This will no longer be the case – all ranked firms will now receive editorial. We will still be publishing a print version this year, however our website will feature significantly expanded content, which in turn should enable our readers to make more informed buying decisions.

alexander_boyes

Are there any other significant changes to be aware of?

We’ve introduced some new sections this year, under our Risk Advisory category. Our Brexit section will highlight firms that are devising solutions to the myriad issues arising from our impending exit from the EU, whether working at a public policy level to shape the government’s strategy for Brexit, or assisting private clients with managing operational risk as a result of Brexit. Our Corporate Governance section will cover work carried out by firms that relates to the system of rules, practices and process by which a company is directed and controlled, and by which are balanced the interests of a company’s stakeholders, including its shareholders, management, consumers, suppliers, financiers, government. The section will also cover advisory work relating to UK and international governance regulations. Lastly, this area will also cover advisory work on the operations of executive boards, D&O responsibilities and shareholder relations, as well as internal investigations of wrongdoing.

We are also introducing a new TMT section for Fintech, which will cover work for start-up firms in this space, as well as advice to investors into the firms, whether through VC funds or financial institutions themselves through their incubator programmes. Work covered includes advice on corporate structuring/contractual agreements with procurers of these services, to related IP, financial services regulatory and disputes.

We know submissions are in already, but what are some of the key things law firms could and should be doing at this stage of the process, that they tend to forget?

Firstly, don’t be afraid to reach out to the researchers with updates to the submission. Keeping us up to speed on new pieces of work or noteworthy additions to the team is always helpful.

Secondly, make sure your referees are looking out for our feedback requests and responding to them. Here’s a breakdown of when we will be reaching out to your referees:

  • Referees received on or by 3rd March will be contacted via email during the week commencing 15th May 2017
  • Referees received between 4th and 17th March will be contacted via email during the week commencing 22nd May 2017

And finally, feel free to reach out to researchers to make sure they have everything they need, or if you would like to arrange an interview. The list of researchers for London can be found here.

Tips To Sharpen Up Your Chambers Submissions: Show, Don’t Tell

We advise a range of blue-chip corporate clients on their big matters

Good for you. But guess what? So do the other 150 firms that are trying to get ranked… way to stand out from the crowd.

Firms include the above sort of statement time and time again when drafting their submissions. I can understand why – marketing teams under time pressures to top-and-tail a practice’s work highlights with some messaging can all too easily fall into the trap of relying on generic “marketing-speak” to flesh out a submission’s content.

Unfortunately, it’s the sort of thing that falls on deaf ears at the directories. It may as well not be there at all.

It’s vital to include information in the submission that shows how your practice and your lawyers stand out from the crowd. What are you really great at? Why do clients come to you, specifically? What makes you a better draw for clients than the other firms in the market? Why is your work worthy of getting you ranked?

These are the messages that should permeate the entire submission – the Overview, the Work Highlights, and the Feedback section. Without this focus on differentiating yourself from your competitor firms, your submissions will end up sounding generic and, dare I say, just a little bit dull.

Every practice is different, and most matters will likely have their own elements that raise them above the norm. However, here are a few quick tips to think about:

The “So What?’ Test: When selecting matters, read each matter description back to yourself and apply the “so-what?” test. If you are left shrugging your shoulders and wondering what’s so special about the matter, explain what makes it interesting. If you can’t, consider whether it might not be strong enough to be included.

What Constitutes Interesting? There are too many potential criteria to list here, but for starters, consider these main ones:

  • A matter that sets a precedent, sets a template for future matters, or will be of widespread application;
  • The first time a deal has been done in a certain jurisdiction, or involving clients from a certain jurisdiction;
  • A matter that demonstrates legal innovation;
  • The first time a deal has been done in a new regulatory environment;
  • A matter that was of supreme importance to your client; and
  • A matter that reflects a notable market trend.

And, of course, don’t keep this information to yourself. Explain how the matter fits into one of the above criteria.

Be Specific in the Feedback Section: If you’re trying to break into a table, or get moved up the table, it’s not enough to say, “we should be ranked/ranked higher because we’ve been very busy handling some very important matters for some very big clients” (see my opening paragraph). It’s essential to draw specific comparisons with the firms you want to be ranked alongside. What makes you as good as them? More matters? Back it up with hard evidence (league tables, for example). The same matters? List your matters and mark which currently ranked firms appeared across the table from/alongside your firm.

Researchers are smart people, but they’re not the legal experts that your partners are. Nor are they mind-readers. Don’t just tell them them you should be ranked/ranked higher – explainto them why you should be.

Legal 500 Hires Catherine McGregor To Head Up Corporate Counsel Initiative

Leading legal directories company The Legal 500 has announced that Catherine McGregor will be joining the company on 27 May as Publishing Director: Corporate Counsel.  Her key focus will be to drive The Legal 500’s engagement with general counsel across the globe.

This is a terrific hire for The Legal 500, and is a clear indication of the company’s strategic approach and future plans for development. Catherine is one of the most experienced legal directory professionals in the market, having previously been Chambers & Partners’ Managing Editor for seven years, and most recently, Managing Editor of Lawdragon.

Says Legal 500 Managing Director David Goulthorpe: “We have recruited Catherine to extend [our corporate counsel] portfolio, and for her to launch a number of new initiatives aimed at corporate counsel. Catherine is a significant appointment for The Legal 500; she will work closely with David Burgess, Publishing Director of The Legal 500 and the global figurehead for the editorial and research teams. These are exciting times at The Legal 500, and in Catherine and David, I firmly believe that we have unparalleled editorial talent driving our business forward.”

Exciting times, indeed. The Legal 500 already has an impressive stock of products aimed at corporate counsel, beyond the core legal directories. Among these are US, UK and Latin America editions of The Corporate Counsel 100, recognising in-house innovation, quality & excellence; and The Corporate Counsel 100 Rising Stars, which recognise the next generation of general counsel – a UK edition is already published, and research is now underway for a forthcoming US edition.

Add these to the company’s leading directories business, its refreshingly different take on legal awards, and its various events, roundtables and client intelligence reports, and it’s clear that The Legal 500 is striving for innovation in its offering. And that can only be a good thing for the market generally.

 

Quick legal directory tips: Nigel Savage interviewed on LexBlog TV

I was interviewed by LexBlog TV’s Colin O’Keefe last week during the excellent LMA Annual Conference in Orlando, Florida. In this  short interview I talk about what I believe to be the essence of preparing a good legal directory submission – focus.

I’ve already been invited to speak at next year’s LMA Conference in San Diego; we’re aiming to put together a great panel covering everything you need to know about legal directories and rankings. Watch this space.

Interview with Legal 500 EMEA: Mike Nash, Editor

The Legal 500 Europe, Middle East & Africa (EMEA) 2014 edition is imminent, with a launch date (online and in print) this year of 10 April 2014. Planning for The Legal 500 EMEA 2015 is also already well underway. Editor Mike Nash was full of useful insights into the process when I caught up with him last week.

Are you planning any changes to the structure of the book this year? Any new practice areas/changes in approach the market needs to be aware of?

We always take on board feedback from readers, client referees and law firms in order to fine-tune the next edition to cover emerging practice areas or jurisdictions. Probably the most visible example of that in the 2014 edition is that we’ve reintroduced coverage of Iraq as the need for commercial law really picks up.

For the 2015 edition, we will be introducing new coverage including a number of additional markets: for example, our Africa coverage will expand and there are also jurisdictions in Southeastern Europe that we will be adding. I can’t say precisely which ones as that’s embargoed until we announce the new schedule and guidelines in April – keep an eye out for news on our EMEA research webpage: www.legal500.com/pages/emea_research.

What is The Legal 500 doing differently now compared with three or five years ago?

We’ve certainly reoriented our focus to maximise our engagement with the market, both in terms of readers of the book who are looking for law firms to instruct – you’ll see that with, for example, our Corporate Counsel series, which recognises leading lawyers in-house – and in terms of getting out and about to visit law firms in more jurisdictions.

The Legal 500’s experienced editorial team frees us up to accommodate more visits to more jurisdictions, knowing that others can “hold the fort” effectively while we’re away; we’re keen to do more visits and it’s fair comment to say we are doing many more than was the case five years ago. Within the past couple of weeks, for example, our Asia-Pacific editor has been in Hong Kong and mainland China, our Latin America editor has been in Argentina and Uruguay, and I am just about to leave for a visit to the United Arab Emirates.

There are different views on the usefulness of visiting law firms: what’s your view?

There are two types of visits, of course: those by editors and those by researchers. Talking editors first, law firms are appreciative of the chance to meet and talk about the research process, how the firm can engage with it more, and how they can maximise the presentation of their arguments to be ranked. It’s also useful from our perspective because we get a heads-up on happenings in the market, as well as a chance to have a frank conversation with law firms about what they can do to help us to help them. Since we aim to rank every law firm as highly as the available information merits, it’s in the interests of us and the law firms to keep the information flow going.

In terms of researcher visits, this is something we have also increased markedly in recent years. Each year I have been editor of EMEA, I have been keen to increase the number of researcher visits; we have increased those numbers so that, for EMEA 2014, we visited 16 countries. The sheer volume of data and finite amounts of time means that we can’t visit all countries within the research period, but it does help the law firms to put a name to a face and to realise that we have good continuity and experience in our team – one of our researchers just retired, which is an indication of the experience we can bring to bear! It also helps the researchers to get a gauge of the intangibles in the market – such as the accessibility and convenience of the law firms’ office location and the visibility of certain client companies in the market – and to talk with firms frankly.

I’d like to increase the number of visits again for the EMEA 2015 edition and will keep pushing that until the accounts department tells me the budget is maxed out!

What have you taken away from your visits?

It’s good to meet lawyers, marketing and business development colleagues and to exchange ideas, and to make contacts to whom you can turn if you have questions. It also helps to shape our guides going forward, as we can amend our coverage to address emerging practice areas or to be aware of significant changes locally – e.g. the fact that Romania has just changed its rules so that advertising and self-promotion has been drastically inhibited. That information was passed to us hot off the presses by lawyers and journalists whom I and our Romania researcher had met very recently. Without those meetings, it’s probable the info would not have been passed on and we would have been slower to find it out.

On another point, accident of invitations and events has meant that much of my recent focus has been on the CIS region – including a trip to Ukraine in December and an appearance via video conference as a speaker at Russia’s National Legal Congress on the subject of legal directories. There is great interest in legal directories and guides generally but alongside that it was instructive to get a sense of just how ingrained and prevalent is the region’s wariness about unfamiliar lawyers, legal directories and consultants – i.e. whether they can be trusted. In the West, the legal market has long since become accustomed to good legal directories providing a valuable second (or first) opinion on unfamiliar markets, but that is a view that is still taking hold in parts of the CIS.

What do you think The Legal 500, as a legal directory, can do to challenge that wariness?

Well, it’s about openness and visibility. For example, I’d venture to suggest that a serious legal directory should always be prepared to provide feedback on the reasons for any ranking, or about ways in which law firms can participate most effectively and perhaps make a better case for themselves next year; that is something we are always happy to do. We meet law firms to discuss these very issues, we also conduct seminars for law firms and marketing teams to address these points, and we take the opportunity to speak at conferences and webinars to explain what we do, how we do it and to illuminate the robustness and fair-mindedness of our research, and the fact that it is free to take part – we’re not charging any money, so why would we need to be biased? I think the fact that the EMEA 2015 edition will be the 25th anniversary of the EMEA guide is an indication that we do things properly and don’t take our task lightly.

Second point is that there is no cost to participate in research, so law firms really should avail themselves of the opportunity to get some free, targeted exposure to the more than 4 million users of our website, the vast bulk of whom are corporate counsel looking at it precisely because they want to instruct a lawyer.

Firms have been submitting to The Legal 500 EMEA for 25 years this year. What are some of the things firms continue to get wrong with their submissions?

First off, it should be said that any submission is gratefully received – we appreciate that law firms go to considerable effort to provide us with information as part of the research process.

Getting to the nitty-gritty of what goes wrong with submissions: the two simplest and most obvious errors are inconsistent participation and missing deadlines.

Our aim is always to provide the best case for every law firm based on the available evidence and benchmarked against the competition. That analytical process is evidence-based, so the more evidence we have the stronger an argument we can make. Needless to say, there are many things a law firm can tell us that isn’t available in the public domain, so we generally have more information about those law firms which do participate than those which do not. If a law firm provides a submission every year, it keeps us updated with a rolling and consistent flow of information about the things it wants us to know.

Missing deadlines very simply harms the research by reducing the amount of time we have to conduct our research to verify facts, talk to clients or seek out other supporting evidence; invariably a late submission is also a rushed submission, so the arguments therein are generally not as well made as they could or should be. In terms of the submissions we do receive, rather than focus on what goes wrong, I’d point to what makes a submission right. The best submissions are concise and focused.

How should firms achieve that conciseness and focus in submissions?

First and foremost, understand how The Legal 500 covers the practice area (i.e. know what is the scope of coverage). How we cover it might differ from other publications.

Once you know the parameters, work out what message you want to convey about the firm’s practice.

Divide submissions into separate documents – one per practice area – which keeps info concise. Every researcher reviews hundreds of submissions containing huge quantities of data, so keeping a submission focused on the practice area and the desired message, with lean and specific supporting evidence is the best way to make important arguments and facts stand out for consideration.

Some of the best submissions can be as short as two pages long and will contain the following:

  • A very brief introduction to the practice and key changes over the past 12 months (e.g. pertinent changes to the law, important new clients, partner promotions/hires/departures) and can be usefully presented in bullet-point fashion; note also that, since many of our researchers will cover the same country each year, you don’t need to introduce the whole market, just give us a brief heads-up on what’s new and significant since we last spoke.
  • Constructive comments on previous rankings about your law firm and competitors, along with supporting arguments for ranking changes with reasons (e.g. your firm acted in 5 of 6 Supreme Court cases to be heard during the year).
  • Identify key lawyers in the practice – not a list of everyone, but those who are team leaders or that you genuinely feel we should rank because they are clearly widely respected by clients (avoid including extensive biographies – we can access them from the website or ask you for them if we need more).
  • 5-10 examples of recent work. Ideally those will name the client, be publishable, explain the work and its context/significance, and name the lawyers involved, and provide the dates of the work. Generic/non-specific examples are rather unhelpful because they are not verifiable and cannot be benchmarked against other practices. Providing old matters completed several years ago is also a no-no; by all means, do mention an old matter if it was a seminal case or deal that illustrates the practice’s provenance, but save the key work highlights for what is new and current to show the practice still attracts work.
  • A list of existing clients (in particular, flagging up key relationships and also new clients) can be a great way to provide a shorthand illustration of the scope and calibre of the practice. Again, if we want more detail, we can come back to you for it.

All that info can be conveyed in 2-4 pages, which is what I would describe as being a good guideline to the optimum length.

Alongside the written submission should be a list of client referees for us to contact on a confidential and non-attributable basis – getting client feedback is really helpful and we contact more than 250,000 client referees every year, so we get huge volumes of commentary on the qualities of law firms. That said, the clients can only tell us so much – we really have to assess the work that the firm has done, which is why an informative written submission is so useful.

It’s worth noting in passing that the client reference questionnaire has only 5 questions and can be answered genuinely in as little as two minutes, so it isn’t a big drain on clients’ time.

How much weight do you place on native/fluent speakers of foreign languages?

It’s most important to have researchers that understand the legal market – what’s the point of asking a question in a native language if you can’t comprehend the significance of the answer? Most of our researchers have been here several years and many of them are qualified or former lawyers or trainees. That said, The Legal 500 also has a good number of foreign language speakers – e.g. for EMEA, we have a pool of experienced researchers that speak French, German, Italian and Spanish – and extra languages are always a useful asset, but the reality is that, at least at this point in time, the language of international business remains English and we are primarily an English-language publication, so an analytical mind, experience and an ability to write fluently in English are primary requirements for researchers on our English-language publications. Most of our 4 million readers read the English website and, as mentioned previously, we contact more than 250,000 client referees every year that speak English, so research can be conducted effectively. For France and Germany we have French and German-language publications written and researched by native speakers.

What are your thoughts on allocating experienced researchers to the same sections as they covered in previous years. Good idea or bad idea?

We have an experienced team in a structure that rewards commitment and experience, so most of our researchers will be conducting research on the same market year after year. Occasionally, it is a good idea to change up the researcher for a fresh perspective, and sometimes a promotion means that an employee can no longer work on some of the projects. For example, I still conduct research myself but the volume of research I do now is considerably less than three years ago in order to allow me to focus on other things including editing the book(!) and meeting more law firms.

We have a mentoring system in place, where previous researchers of a market will advise researchers who are working on a market for the first time. Also, at the end of each research cycle, every researcher fills out detailed feedback on what is going on in the market, ranking changes and reasons for them and, just as importantly, rankings that didn’t change but where we want to keep an eye on certain lawyers or practices for potential changes next year. This is a useful reminder to researchers even if they covered the market last year and it means that our research team always goes into new research phases forearmed with our company’s collective experience.

Are there any other EMEA-focused initiatives you’re planning for the coming year?

In short, yes. Until we publish the new schedule for The Legal 500 EMEA, I can’t reveal full details but I can say that we’ll be covering more markets in the 2015 edition than we did in 2014, and certainly Africa will be in for a dose of enhanced coverage.

Also, the Corporate Counsel series (which our company debuted last year to recognise the industry contribution of leading in-house lawyers) has done the US and Latin America and will reach certain markets in EMEA, with a Corporate Counsel Africa being next up.

There are also a number of other significant projects in the pipeline which I can’t talk about at this point in time but that I hope we’ll be able to announce over the next few weeks and months.

Interview with Chambers Europe: Georgia Brooks, Editor

For a wealth of inside information relating to Chambers Europe, check out my interview with the Editor, Georgia Brooks. I caught up with Georgia recently to discuss changes to this year’s book, and tips for how to engage with the research process.

Are you planning any changes to the structure of the book this year? Any new practice areas/changes in approach the market needs to be aware of?

Firstly, the 2014 Chambers Europe guide will look very different to previous editions.  We have greatly changed the editorial layout, to highlight a team’s key strengths as well as its main areas of activities.  Extended information, such as basic facts about the department and additional work highlights, will also be available on our website: http://www.chambersandpartners.com/guide/europe/7Georgia_Brooks

This year we have added an unprecedented number of new practice areas at both a country level and in the Europe-wide chapter.  Energy has been a key area of law for multiple jurisdictions, and we researched it for the first time in Belgium, Denmark, Finland and Sweden.  At a Europe-wide level we have seen an increase in internal investigations and regulatory work, so added two new sections to cover these: Corporate Investigations and Regulatory & Public Affairs.  Data Protection is another growing area of focus across Europe, and that too has been introduced in the Europe-wide section.

Lastly, we conducted more regional research and added separate Central & Eastern Europe sections in Banking & Finance, Corporate/M&A and Dispute Resolution.  We also introduced a Baltic-wide Corporate/Commercial section to highlight firms active in that region.  At a country level, we also added France Regions and Russia Regions sections; which will highlight firms who are active outside of the capital.

European firms have been submitting to Chambers for more than 20 years. What are some of the things firms continue to get wrong with their submissions?

The key aspect that firms continue to get wrong, or rather miss completely, is to explain why a work highlight is important and explain the specific role the team played.  It definitely helps to summarise the matter – concisely! – and put it into context.  Also feel free to send us additional information from local news sources, where relevant.

Furthermore, a lot of firms only highlight on the top-value deals, whereas it helps to show a breadth of expertise.  It’s a good idea to explain all the strengths of the team, then use the ten work matters as an illustration.

Finally, and I cannot stress this enough, but missing the deadline is a big no-no!

What’s your advice on how firms with plenty of lawyers ranked in a section should get more lawyers on the list?

I advise taking a two-pronged approach; first, make sure that you highlight the lawyers you want to see ranked in the submission.  There is space on the submission form to include key names, and it’s also crucial that their work highlights are also listed, so we can see what work they have handled.  Secondly, put forward client referees who can talk about the team as a whole and a range of individuals.  Of course make sure that the client is happy and willing to speak to us – this makes such a difference!

Tell me about your research team – is it the same team as last year, or will there be any new faces?

We do have a few new faces to the team, which is natural in such a large research team. However, the greatest change has been with the deputy editors; we promoted four individuals towards the end of 2013.  All four were extremely experienced researchers, and one (Lucy Craig) was previously the assistant editor for Germany.  I’m sure many firms will recognise them from their time as researchers.  Here they are below as well as the list of jurisdictions they oversee:

Francesca Lean – France, Italy, Malta, Portugal and Spain
Katherine Yu – the Baltic and Nordic regions, Poland, Russia and Ukraine
Lucy Craig – Austria, Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Switzerland
William Robertson – Central and South East Europe, plus Turkey.

If firms have any queries about the research it’s best to come to me and the deputy editor for the relevant country.

When recruiting, how much weight do you place on native/fluent speakers of foreign languages?

Being able to speak to clients and lawyers in their native tongue is extremely useful, and in some jurisdictions absolutely crucial!  On the current Europe team our researchers speak over ten different languages, including French, German, Portuguese, Greek, Hungarian and Russian.  Foreign languages are a very important part of the research and thus the recruiting process.

For any new researchers, what steps do you take before research starts to educate them a little, to make sure they are not coming to it completely cold?

For most of February and March the deputy editors, assistant editors and myself interview managing partners from firms across Europe.  It is a great time for the managing partners to tell us about key market developments as well as changes at their own firm.  We use the information we gather to better allocate our resources throughout the year, and of course pass this knowledge onto the researcher before research starts.  Thus, researchers know in advance what has been happening in the market as well as new practice areas or firms to ask about.

What are your thoughts on allocating experienced researchers to the same sections as they covered in previous years. Good idea or bad idea?

For the Europe team, the most important element in assigning researchers is language.  Thus for jurisdictions where speaking the native language is crucial, such as France, Germany, Spain, Russia, Italy, then it is obviously a good idea to have the same researcher cover the jurisdiction.  That said, a fresh pair of eyes can offer a different perspective, not to mention a different research experience.  At a deputy and editor level then we try to keep consistency, as we are the ones ultimately evaluating the research.  You will notice that the deputy editors are responsible for a region, which gives them expert knowledge of various jurisdictions as well as an understanding of how those countries often work together.

Any plans for the researchers to travel to meet with firms face-to-face? It’s something that firms appreciate in relation to at least one of your close rival publications…

I and the deputy editors frequently meet with firms when they come to London.  It is definitely useful to hold face-to-face meetings, as it enhances our knowledge of the firm and likewise allows us to explain more about the research process.  I am also quite fortunate in that I can travel to meet firms on occasion e.g. in the last year I visited firms in Turkey, the Netherlands, Norway, Belgium, Germany and Ukraine.  As much as we would all like to be travelling across Europe, we find that we can conduct more thorough research from our base in London.  You may find that surprising but the researchers couldn’t travel with the database in tow, nor would they have the wealth of material that we have in the office.

Are there any other Europe-focused initiatives you’re planning for the coming year?

For the 2015 guide we are expanding our regional coverage even further by introducing a CIS Corporate/Commercial section.  At a Europe-wide level we will research Real Estate for the first time, while in the Central & Eastern Europe section we will add Dispute Resolution.  Compliance has been the buzzword for a while now, and we are introducing the section in Germany.  The Germany chapter will also see new Commercial Contracts and Transportation sections.

Another key initiative that we are focusing on is to develop the mid-market coverage, such as Corporate/M&A sections divided into High-End Capability and Mid-Market.  This is currently in place for France and Germany, and I imagine this will only grow.  Indeed, we are seeing increased engagement from firms active at this level as well as interest from clients.

Research for the 2015 guide starts in March and the first submission deadline was 24 February.  However, we are still accepting submissions so firms should check the online schedule for further information: http://www.chambersandpartners.com/secure/research-schedule

Interview with Jonathan Rubin, Editor, Chambers UK

The launch of the 2014 edition of Chambers UK is imminent. And before the ink has dried, results have been assessed, hands have been wrung and teeth have been gnashed, it’ll be time to start all over again with preparing submissions for the 2015 edition (isn’t life wonderful?). I caught up with Jonathan Rubin, Editor of Chambers UK, to talk about how the 2014 edition will look – and about some tips and insights into the 2015 edition.

Are you planning any changes to the structure of the book this year? Any new practice areas/changes in approach the market needs to be aware of?Jonathan_Rubin

The new 2014 guide (which launches on 30 October 2013) will have a very different feel to the 2013 version.  The first thing that you will notice with the 2014 guide is the change in editorial layout.  We have done this to allow for greater emphasis on the strengths of a particular law firm, and what it is they actually do.

Secondly, this year we have written about firms on a regional basis (while maintaining city-based rankings), while also highlighting those firms outside of London, who have a national presence in new ‘National Leaders’ tables.  This shows to clients of law firms that the best possible option for them is not necessarily based in London.  For the 2015 guide, we are looking to expand our regional coverage further, by introducing new regional tables in areas as diverse as Fraud and Asset Finance.

We will also look to continue to develop the new Hotels & Leisure and Commercial Contracts sections, featured for the first time in the forthcoming 2014 guide, and we will introduce two new sections in 2015 – Art & Cultural Property Law and POCA Work & Asset Forfeiture.

UK firms have been submitting to Chambers for more than 20 years. What are some of the things firms continue to get wrong with their submissions?

The key thing firms have to remember when drafting submissions is to know their audience.  The best submissions are those that are written in clear, plain English, and talk about how the firm adds value to the client.

Additionally, I think firms think about submissions the wrong way round.  It is a mistake to use “what are our ten best matters” as a starting point.  The best submissions are those that start by telling us the story of what it is a practice can do, and then illustrate that with the ten matters.  Rather than seeing the top ten by value, or by highest profile client, we want to see breadth of expertise and ability to provide clients with business critical advice.

Oh, and of course, always get your submissions in on time!

Chambers limits the number of client references firms can submit. What is the rationale behind that, and how should firms with plenty of lawyers ranked in a section already work within those limits to get more lawyers on the list? 

The rationale is quite simply timing and resources.  In addition to generating and following up on our own leads, we speak to literally thousands of referees put forward by firms.  We only have a finite amount of time to research every section, and we place great importance on actually speaking to referees.  We are fundamentally committed to this method, as we get far better feedback this way, particularly when it comes to finding out about the up and coming stars in the market.

One piece of advice I would give is for firms to be careful how they select their referees.  I would always advise selecting those referees who are best placed to speak about the team as a whole, and a wide range of individuals in that team.  In particular, we are always interested in hearing from clients about the junior members of the team as well as the unsung heroes, rather than the established names who everyone already knows.

What can firms do to optimize response levels from their client references, and when should those actions be taken? 

There are two things firms can do:

First, before compiling referee spreadsheets, ensure that referees are both willing and able to participate.  It is amazing how many referees get put forward that are not permitted to speak to us about their service providers, by virtue of their own company’s internal policies.

Secondly, during research, follow up with the researcher to find out when they will be contacting referees.  All initial contact with referees is by email, so remind clients that they should be expecting an email, who it is coming from and what it is.  This, we find, greatly increases the response rate.

Tell me about your research team – is it the same team as last year, or will there be any new faces?

In a team of 50 dedicated UK researchers, there are bound to be people that some of your readers have not yet dealt with.  But my deputy editors Jamie Horne, Liam Whitton and Bryony Hirsch will all be familiar names in the market.  I am also delighted to be joined by Georgina Watts, who has been promoted to deputy editor following her outstanding research on previous guides.

For any new researchers, what steps do you take before research starts to educate them a little, to make sure they are not coming to it completely cold? 

The deputies and I will be spending the period after launch (30 October) to the start of research (around February 2014), going out to the market, to find out what is going on in the market and the key areas that we should be looking at across the board.  As a result, all researchers are armed, regardless of their experience, with information directly from the market itself before they start research.  This information covers both specific issues in a given practice area and the actual activity of law firms – lawyer moves, firm mergers etc.

As well as reviewing the rankings and editorial that researchers produce, it is our responsibility as an editorial team to ensure they are adequately informed of all the issues at hand throughout research.

What are your thoughts on allocating experienced researchers to the same sections as they covered in previous years. Good idea or bad idea?

I think it is important to have consistency at the editor and deputy editor level, as we are the ones who meet with firms initially, set the tone for research and then evaluate the research.  Nonetheless, it is useful for certain practice areas to have the same researchers year on year, but I think there is also a lot to be said for a fresh pair of eyes who can look at a section differently.

Are there any other UK-focused initiatives you’re planning for the coming year?

One major initiative we are certainly focusing on this year will be to develop and implement a “No firm too small” strategy.  We recognise that not all clients are FTSE 100 companies or major global private equity funds.  In fact, the clients who perhaps find our guide the most useful are smaller, sometimes family-owned businesses, who are not sophisticated users of law firms.  Accordingly, and in recognition of this, we are introducing a number of ‘SME/Owner-Managed Businesses’ subsections to existing chapters, including Corporate/M&A, Litigation, Banking & Finance and Real Estate, to highlight the work that law firms do for these sorts of clients.

Interview with Lauren Hughes, Editor, Legal 500 US

Lauren Hughes took over the editorship of the Legal 500 US earlier this year, bringing with her many years’ experience as a researcher on the US and other Legal 500 editions. I caught up with Lauren to talk about her plans for the forthcoming edition of the Legal 500 US – the deadlines for which are coming up in November – and to hear about some other new initiatives at Legal 500 that will be particular interest to the US legal market.

As the new editor of Legal 500 US, are you planning any changes to the structure of the book this year? Any new practice areas the market needs to be aware of?L500 logo

It will be much the same structure as last year’s, but with two additions: Cyber Crime will be included as a section within the Media, Technology and Telecoms chapter, and Sport has been reintroduced within the Industry Focus chapter. The timings remain the same as ever; submissions are due just after Thanksgiving, and research will take place through December and January.

You have plenty of first-hand experience of reviewing submissions, having been at Legal 500 for some years now. What are some of the things that US firms continue to get wrong with their submissions?

Not tailoring submissions for the Legal 500 is the biggest mistake. Our focus is on the elite only, so firms have to demonstrate that they have a strong national practice to even be considered. So, for example, receiving four submissions for four different offices is not helpful when trying to assess the overall capabilities of a firm. Nor is receiving a list of individual lawyers followed by each of their work highlights. We are much more interested in what the group has achieved collectively.

Another mistake is to send in submissions covering multiple sections, meaning I’d have to search it to find the bit that’s relevant for me. Firms should bear in mind that we allocate different researchers to each section, so it’s much better to send us a separate document for each.

And finally, listing lots of deals and cases with too much technical detail, without including context to explain why the matter is impressive.

But I should add that on the whole, the standard of submissions from the US is usually pretty good!

One key difference between Legal 500 and Chambers is the fact that Legal 500 accepts unlimited client references. How do you manage the process of contacting them all, and any follow up that might need doing?

We have an amazing admin team here, and they pull together the vast number of client reference emails we get each year, and ensure that we are not sending multiple emails to the same person, that kind of thing. As for how on earth they manage it, who knows! But we don’t chase the referees down as we don’t want to bug them. If they want to respond, they will.

What can firms do to optimize response levels from their client references, and when should those actions be taken?

It goes without saying that they should ask for permission before putting their names down. But they may want to remind them again when December comes round, and at that time they will also be able to provide the name of the individual researcher who’ll be emailing them. And I always advise contacting the researcher towards the end of the research period to ask if they’ve received a sufficient number of responses.

Also references don’t strictly have to be clients, nor do they have to be the GC; it can be anybody who can provide an assessment about the practice. It’s better to choose the people who are more likely to respond.

The referee feedback is a key component of the research, but for us it’s not necessarily the be all and end all. We understand that a lack of feedback can be put down to a number of different reasons, so if it happens it doesn’t necessarily mean the firm will drop a tier. Being able to demonstrate a strong track record of work is more important.

Tell me about your research team – is it the same team as last year, or will there be any new faces?

I’m happy to say there are many of the same faces as before. Continuity is important to us and to the firms, and we get a lot of good feedback about that. As the company is in growth mode, it’s inevitable that there’ll be some new faces too. And there are a few members in the team who have been promoted to other positions, but they will still be around to mentor and oversee the others’ work.

For any new researchers, what steps do you take before research starts to educate them a little, to make sure they are not coming to it completely cold?

The editors will always work more closely with newer researchers. Some will be new to the US market but will have worked on our other books, as the team rotates. For those people, we will spend some time at the start of the research to go through the slightly different approach needed for the US market. Speaking more generally, new starters always get the opportunity to listen in on interviews, and take part in a number of formal training sessions too. For the first year or so, they are assigned a ‘mentor’ who sits nearby and can answer all their questions. But the training never really stops. We regularly have practice area-specific training sessions, either conducted internally or with lawyers.

I have to mention that we always welcome hearing firms’ thoughts about our researchers. Equally, our publishing director is always happy to give feedback on firms’ marketing and BD staff, so it works both ways!

What are your thoughts on allocating experienced researchers to the same sections as they covered in previous years. Good idea or bad idea?

Good idea. Definitely. As I mentioned, firms always tell us that they appreciate it as it means they don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time and can trust that person to make a well-informed assessment of the market. M&A, employment and technology are some examples of areas that have had the same researcher for many years.

A key new initiative for Legal 500 this year is the Corporate Counsel 100, which launches this weekend. Could you give us some insights into this new initiative?

The whole concept of the Legal 500 is to produce useful copy for corporate counsel, and at the moment we do that by helping them choose which law firm to instruct. But we thought, why stop at that? So the Corporate Counsel 100 is a way of letting them know what their own peers are up to, and enabling them to share ideas. When it came to selecting people for the list, law firms jumped at the chance to nominate as it’s a way for them to give something back to their clients, as opposed to asking them to provide yet another reference!

The research and writing process for this has been consuming all my time for the past while, so I hope people will enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I interviewed so many inspiring people and was quite blown away by some of the things they’ve achieved. It’s also been a great way for me as editor to learn more about what they want and need from their outside counsel, and about how the Legal 500 can help facilitate those needs.

We’ll be launching the list at the IBA and ACC conferences this month, and the full editorial will be available online. There are plans to replicate it in other jurisdictions, so stay tuned.

Are there any other U.S.-focused initiatives you’re planning for the coming year?

There are quite a few! Some are in the early stages so I won’t say too much, but we have added a new research arm to the business, who will be producing bespoke industry insight reports on request. We are also planning to do more roundtables. Then there’s the global client feedback report that’s in the works. And, the UK awards seem to be going down well over here, so perhaps we might replicate that model in the US.

Interview With Laura Mills, Chambers USA Editor

Chambers & Partners continues to be a dominant player in the legal directories market. Its USA edition – a jurisdiction where it had first-mover advantage almost ten years ago –  is now as woven into the fabric of the US legal market as its sister titles are elsewhere in the world. I caught up with Chambers USA Editor, Laura Mills, who took time out of the hectic USA research cycle – ongoing as we speak – to tell me about how things are going, and about some new initiatives.

We’re about halfway through the current Chambers USA research cycle. How’s it going?

Everything is going really well! Our team is great and they’re getting excellent feedback from clients and firms. Participation continues to increase, and the quality and depth of the research is better than ever.Laura_Mills

Are there any areas (regional/state-wide or practice-based) that you will be expanding in the next edition?

We already provide coverage of all 50 states, but we’d like to expand the rankings to go into more depth in states where we have a major metropolitan economic centre. Illinois and New York are both great examples – the rankings are heavily Chicago- and New York City-dominant, so we’d like to expand coverage of the rest of the state. We’ll likely start small, with a few basic tables in each, but we’d really like to give the smaller firms their time to shine and the right context in which to do it. About half the US economy is small business-driven and most of them probably aren’t looking for legal advice from Wall Street firms, so we’d like to provide recommendations for all types of clients.

We’ve also added a few technology and healthcare tables, as part of our more ‘usual’ expansion, and we’ve given REITs and FCPA tables of their own in the Nationwide chapter.

What are you seeing in terms of general improvements in the standard of submissions coming from firms?

More firms are using our template now, which has made a big difference. As I always say, the templates ask for what we do want and omit what we don’t want, so they’re great guidelines. Also, as I’ve taken the “Chambers Roadshow” (as I like to call it) around the US, I’ve been able to advise firms a lot more effectively. My deputies and I are always giving feedback from London as well, so advice like “fewer, better deal descriptions rather than many one-sentence write-ups” has really made a big difference in the kind of submissions we’re seeing, as has practical advice on how to manage assembling those referee spreadsheets.

What are the key things that firms still seem to get wrong with their submissions?

One big thing a lot of firms can improve is the quality of their work highlight write-up. I recommend two paragraphs: one to briefly describe the nuts and bolts of the deal/case (and the firm’s role in it) and one to explain what was noteworthy about the work. A lot of firms also miss out when they don’t list the name of every lawyer who’s made a meaningful contribution to the work. We’re not just ranking lead partners, so it’s really helpful for us to know who’s on the team.

On the referee side, I think some firms are still treating the client list as something that’s meant to impress in and of itself, without considering the likelihood of response. My best suggestion is to go through the list of referees and ask “Are they going to respond and are they going to provide substantive, detailed feedback about our whole team?”

And more generally, what would you say are the elements of the submission process that firms still misunderstand?

I think a lot of firms are unsure about how we assess teams and individuals relative to each other. I’d probably think of it like a salad – you want all of the pieces to come together to make one great salad, but you also want individually tasty components. You wouldn’t want to serve someone one plate of spinach, one of croutons, one of shredded carrots, and one of tomatoes, so you should combine them all in an appropriate balance. We’ll appreciate the deliciousness of the whole salad while also noting how fresh the tomatoes were and how crispy the spinach is. So make sure your submission shows the best of your individuals when looked at deal-by-deal, but also the best of the team as a whole when looked at as an entire presentation.

Chambers has been pretty vocal about the importance of covering younger attorneys. How are you planning on making sure that happens?

The first thing is by spreading the word (as I did above, thanks for the opportunity!) that firms should be including the names of younger partners and associates on the work highlights in the submissions. Most importantly, the researchers are asking clients to give us in-depth feedback about the whole team. Once we’ve gotten a client’s comments on his/her relationship partner(s), the researchers drill deeper in order to get feedback on other members of the team, emphasising the rising stars. Often what looks to be just one person’s referral turns into feedback on half a dozen people or more.

Then, if we have enough feedback, plus some good work highlights, that’s an easy way to boost the numbers of ranked individuals with no opportunity cost to the senior attorneys who are the focus of the submission.

To what extent do the Chambers USA Awards for Excellence tie in with the directory research? I’ve seen a number of instances where the obvious Band 1 firm doesn’t win a practice award, for example…

That’s a great question, and one I get a lot! The awards really focus on the performance and progress of a firm over the preceding year, and honouring those firms that have – for one reason or another – stood out. It could be the practice’s outstanding client feedback, or an impressive victory in court, or winning a coveted client. Our Band 1 firms are always doing excellent work, and indeed many of them get honoured at the awards, but we also want to recognise the firms that have made great strides, so that could mean that you see a smaller firm get nominated in recognition of a landmark win that moved it up from Band 4 to Band 3.

What’s your current view of the legal directories market generally – still flourishing, or in need of modernisation and change?

I think that the strongest directories have ridden the crest of the directory wave and things have calmed down a bit from a couple years ago. We continue to use our client-driven research to stay on top of trends in order to ensure that we’re meeting the needs of in-house counsel, which is always our priority. For us, that means that the researchers take more time on client calls to do truly investigative research, finding out exactly what the in-house folks are looking for and what the individual strengths of their lawyers are. We’re also updating our website to reflect the depth of information we have access to, making it easier for clients to find exactly what they need by way of a sophisticated filter search.

The focus on up-and-comers is also critical here; clients have been clear in their desire to see more coverage in this area, and we’ve had many of them note how pleased they are that the researchers are probing into the full team on our calls. So long as we listen to clients and cover what they need, we’ll continue to evolve and provide them with the accurate, objective assessment that they’ve come to expect from us.

Interview with Catherine McGregor, Lawdragon’s Chief of Strategic Development

Catherine McGregor, long-time member of Chambers’ senior editorial team, made something of a surprise move recently when she moved to Lawdragon as the company’s new Chief of Strategic Development. Here’s what Catherine had to say about that move, and about Lawdragon‘s plans for future development, when I caught up with her recently.

Your move from a senior editorial position at Chambers – arguably the leading legal directory globally – to Lawdragon was a pretty surprising move. What prompted the move?

Essentially it felt like time. I had been at Chambers for over 7 years, and it felt like a good point to move to the next stage. Chambers is wonderful but it’s at a very developed stage as a company.  Coming to a company that’s at an earlier growth stage is really exciting and challenging. I have equity in Lawdragon so I will be working for myself, along with my partners, which is a huge source of excitement and creative energy for me.

Why Lawdragon, specifically? Did you spot an opportunity there to revamp that product?

Well they asked me! But it’s a very well respected product with a huge growth potential. They are completely committed to the Internet and new media. I do find the mix of high-quality journalism and lawyer evaluations a really interesting model, which has huge potential.

On the face of it, Lawdragon hasn’t so far really tried to compete in the same space as classic directories like Chambers and Legal 500. Does their decision to hire you indicate a change of heart in that regard?

Yes and no. We will be growing our portfolio of products and expanding, but not competing in the Chambers/Legal 500 sphere exactly.  They both do what they do well, and frankly there’s not really any appetite or need that I can see for another comprehensive legal directory in that model.

One of your primary responsibilities is to develop new products. What new initiatives can we expect to see from Lawdragon in the coming year?

A lot. I’m currently working on some practice-/legal trend-focused guides. These will marry Lawdragon‘s journalistic expertise with my directory knowledge, as well as my relationships with, and insight into the needs of, in-house counsel. We’re also planning a hard-hitting guide to trial lawyers.

I will also be reviving my general counsel round tables, which I had previously held in London and New York where in-house lawyers can meet and discuss key topics under Chatham House rules.

All these new products are being developed in conjunction and conversation with my network of in-house contacts, who have been fabulously generous with their time and supportive of my efforts. A big thank you to them for continuing to support me.

Thus far Lawdragon has been US-focused. Are there any plans afoot for international expansion?

Yes, but this will be measured and in line with the focus of our new products.

The classic directories haven’t really changed their model for 20 years. Do you think it’s time for something of an overhaul?

Yes. I think the classic directories provide a great overview of the breadth of the legal market. I think there is a gap for products that are more detailed and which assume that the reader knows the basic landscape.

The role and profile of the in-house lawyer has changed immeasurably since the first directories came on the scene, and we’d like to provide information that can cater to the needs of current general counsel and their teams. However, any information is only going to be part of an arsenal of resources that are used in making hiring decisions.

There is much research that seems to state that clients don’t use directories, but I do doubt that; I think it’s often a dirty secret and people don’t want to admit they do use them, even in a limited capacity!

As a seasoned directories professional, what’s your impression of the current state of the directories market?

As I stated above, directories are always going to be just one resource used; there does appear to be a disproportionate burden on many firms in dealing with these, however. Perhaps there needs to be more emphasis on independent research to lessen the burden on law firms.

I think there will always be a need for Chambers and Legal 500, as they are just so well established and are both solid brands. The market is changing though, so you never know; 15 years ago Martindale was the only name in the US and that has definitely changed.

Interview With Steve Naifeh, Founder, Best Lawyers

A long-time market leader in the somewhat crowded peer-review section of the legal directories market, Best Lawyers‘ recent tie-up with U.S. News & World Report added a significant string to the directory’s bow. Here’s what Best Lawyers founder Steve Naifeh had to say when I caught up with him earlier this week.

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Best Lawyers is among the longest-running legal rankings publications. How – if at all – and why has the philosophy behind it changed since the early days?

Best Lawyers has changed a lot in the past 32 years. We now have almost 50 people in two offices (South Carolina and New York), not just me in one office. We cover hundreds of legal practice areas in over 65 legal markets, not just ten practice areas in the U.S. We rank firms as well as lawyers. We have a website that reaches about a million unique visitors a month instead of a book that reached several thousand lawyers a year.

But even though a lot has changed, the philosophy hasn’t changed. At Best Lawyers, providing the most accurate possible ratings remains our core mission – even though legal rankings have become a business since we started out three decades ago and so many competitors have entered the field.”

In a market where several of the best-known directories have made client feedback a central feature of their research, how difficult has it been to resist that, and stick with peer review?

“We believe that client feedback can be extremely valuable, and we have added it to peer-review as a part of the rating process for law firms. But we know that corporate clients – and especially general counsel who deal with many different lawyers and law firms – provide more dependable opinions than individuals who are not themselves lawyers or who have not dealt with many lawyers. Individual clients tend to focus on results and personality. Sometimes the best possible lawyer can’t deliver ideal results in terrible circumstances. And however desirable a good personality may be, it is as important to have the right lawyer as it is to have the right doctor, regardless of personality.”

Best Lawyers expanded the scope of its coverage beyond the United States relatively recently to include various key international markets, including the UK and Continental Europe. How’s that going?

“We have been working since 2009 throughout Europe and in the major legal markets in Asia and Latin America, as well as in Canada and Mexico. Because our lists run in major newspapers in many of these markets, our lists have become extremely important – the most important lists even in some markets that we have entered relatively recently.”

Best Lawyers‘ tie-up in 2010 with U.S. News was one of the biggest developments in the directories market in recent times. What prompted that decision?

U.S. News has a reputation for rankings in general, as well as a very strong platform, and is moving into many new fields beyond its obvious strengths in rating schools and hospitals. It seemed like a natural partnership to bring our new law firm rankings to the largest and most influential possible audience.”

Three editions in, how is the U.S. News-Best Lawyers “Best Law Firms” product going? Has its success in gaining traction in what is a pretty saturated market matched your expectations?

“The traction was very strong from the beginning, partly because the leaders of so many of the largest law firms in the country are on the boards of schools and hospitals that are rated by U.S. News. The traction has gotten stronger each year as lawyers and law firm leaders see how carefully we undertake the research process, how hard we work to make the process better and easier each year, and how valuable the ratings are to legal marketing.”

What plans are in the pipeline for developing Best Lawyers? Or is it a case (perfectly understandably!) of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”?

“A company can always be improved, and we are constantly thinking of ways to improve Best Lawyers. A phrase I hate hearing from anyone on our team is that “we’ve always done it this way.” Innovation and technology can improve any company, as I believe they have improved ours. It is a long time, and much has changed, since I began the first peer-review list in the legal profession 32 years ago with paper and pencil and a telephone. I am still trying to believe that imitation is the highest form of flattery. Naturally, I will certainly keep Savage Comms informed of major changes.”

Being a seasoned directories’ professional, what’s your opinion on the current state of the directories market? How do you see directories continuing to play a role going forward?

“There are too many directories and too many of them are all about making money. I am sure that the market will shake some of them out, and I believe that quality will be a factor.”

Legal 500 Takes Fresh Approach To Awards Ceremonies

The Legal 500 has announced a fresh take on the run-of-the-mill awards ceremonies, with the launch of its Legal 500 2013 Awards.

Awards ceremonies are big business in today’s legal market. But,  increasingly, they are all the same: big black tie events, where you sit at a table of  whoever the firms could persuade/bribe/beg to attend.

According to Legal 500 Publishing Director, David Burgess: “Our view is that we want to recognise the best in the business, without all the hoopla of an event to overshadow it.”

Using Legal 500‘s in-depth research as a starting point, the aim will be to judge the work of firms and barristers on the submissions they’ve already provided during the Legal 500 research process. The awards themselves will therefore follow the practice areas in the Legal 500 book, apart from the few regional/jurisdictional awards (Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, and Offshore). The Bar awards, meanwhile, will recognise sets and QCs across the sections.

So far, so familiar, right? But, there are some crucial differences that make Legal 500‘s awards a somewhat different beast.

First, awards won’t be handed out on the night (so, no long ceremony – something I’m sure will make a lot of people very happy). Instead, firms will be presented with a trophy and logos which they can use for promoting the firm.

Secondly – and here’s the real difference – there won’t be a massive event at a London hotel for a thousand people. No big black tie event, no table sales… a departure indeed. Instead, winners will be invited to a networking dinner, with a mix of firms, sets/QCs and importantly, in-house lawyers – to deepen relationships and be allowed to properly network.

And the real difference between Legal 500‘s awards and pretty much every other awards event in the market? None of the attendees will be charged money to attend.

It’s a pretty radical approach, and it will be interesting to see whether it catches on. But however it is greeted in the market, one thing is for sure: innovation seems to be the new watchword at Legal 500. And that can only be a good thing for the market generally.

Interview: David Burgess, Publishing Director, The Legal 500

The Legal 500 can lay claim to being among the best-established, longest-running research-based guides in the market; more than 20 years on, it remains an essential, market-leading publication in the rankings world. I caught up with Publishing Director David Burgess, who has been instrumental in successfully steering The Legal 500 through some testing market conditions over the past few years – and who remains as bullish as ever about the future.

What’s the one thing that, in your view, sets The Legal 500 apart from the other research guides in the market?

Burgess

“I’m not sure there is just one thing. But I’ll focus on something that I feel is important – the quality of the research team. Research guides should live or die by the quality and depth of their research, and to do this effectively you need to have experienced researchers who understand the market and the practice areas. It’s a widespread criticism of other guides that they employ only fresh graduates and that the researchers change every year – this is a cause of constant frustration for law firms, and I understand.

The Legal 500 research team benefits from having a wide range of experienced researchers (including former lawyers, legal journalists and research specialists) who return to their practice areas or jurisdictions year after year. It’s always interesting when I’m out meeting with firms across the world – many of the firms refer to my researchers by their first names, as they have known them for many years, but don’t know who the researchers are for the other guides.

It’s also important to note that each of the editors here also conduct research, they lead by example, and helps to give us a real understanding of the issues that affect corporate counsel.”

What are the key things firms most often get wrong in their submissions?

“The key thing to remember is that The Legal 500 focuses on the teams, rather than the individuals. That’s not to say great lawyers aren’t important, but from my many years of talking to in-house counsel, they focus on the strength of the team, from partners to associates, and assess the overall capability of the practice that they wish to instruct. There is a backlash against the numerous guides that focus on the individuals – what many in the market refer to as “vanity guides” – as there is no real editorial depth or analysis. So, for the submissions, that has to be the focus. And the tough part for firms, especially the larger firms, is to take that ego out of the equation and produce a submission that puts the team, not the individuals, forward.

Let me put it like this: firms should think of their submissions as a pitch document for a new client, highlighting the strength of the team, recent examples of work that show the unique aspects of that practice, and that it’s a team, not a series of unrelated individuals.

Another area that firms often get wrong is when talking about work, they focus on the technical details, instead of talking about why that work is representative of the practice (ie. why was it innovative? why is it market-leading?). And a long list of work is not that helpful – we understand that law firms work on many deals throughout the year, but focus on the ones that show the high-level abilities, and leave the cookie-cutter work off the submission.

Finally, firms have to be realistic about where they feel they are in the market – give us feedback on last year’s rankings, but be honest.”

How do interviews with partners affect a firm’s rankings? Can a strong partner interview tip the balance and get a firm promoted (and vice versa)?

“There are a number of factors that affect a firm’s ranking, and there is no exact science of formula. However, I would add here that there is a misconception that the research guides are ‘80% what the clients say’ – it simply isn’t true. The submissions, the client feedback, peer feedback and firm interviews are all important and go into the mix.

What I can say is that a good interview helps but doesn’t exactly tip the balance – that would be to suggest that we are influenced in the wrong way – ultimately we have to look at all the evidence, and weigh it up against the evidence from every other firm. Likewise, an interview that doesn’t go well is not going to lead us to drop a firm in the rankings.

We don’t interview every firm for every practice area. In fact, often we can see from the submission exactly what a firm has been doing, and when you couple that with experienced researchers returning to the area they covered last year, often an interview is not necessary as we have all we need. But if firms feel that in certain practice areas they haven’t told their story, or want to highlight changes that have been made (either in the team, or in the demands of clients) then they should request an interview. And on that point, I would also add: don’t sit back and wait for someone to contact you. There’s a reason we publish the researchers’ names (and contact details), and we would encourage you to contact them at the start of the research process to request your interviews!”

What’s your one golden rule for partners participating in interviews with your researchers?

“Be prepared. The worst interviews happen when partners haven’t read their own submission, or looked at last year’s editorial or rankings. And if you don’t have what you want to say prepared, then the interview will be vague and directionless. Fortunately many partners are well prepared, and the marketing and business development teams in most firms take the time to prep them the day before, and debrief them afterwards. If firms don’t do this, I would urge them to do it. And if after the interview, the firm feels that the key points may not have come across, by all means, follow up with the researcher afterwards.”

A firm is unhappy with a particular ranking. What’s the best way for them to address it with you?

“We are always happy to give feedback to firms (within confidentiality boundaries, of course) as to why we have ranked them as we have. The best way for us to deal with any questions about rankings is to keep on top of the enquiries, so we ask everyone to send an email to editorial@legal500.com, and our truly amazing admin team will make sure it gets to the right people who are able to deal with it. However, when we launch each book, we are usually inundated with enquiries, so it does take time to go through them all. So I would urge firms to be patient while we work through them all.

Some other tips: it is always better to have one person centrally at the firm that everything is sent through – what often delays us are questions that come from numerous people at the same firm (often with roughly the same questions) that take time to answer individually. It is better for us to get a central set of questions that we answer, and which can be sent round to the relevant people in the firm by that contact person. I would also suggest that firms gather their questions and send them through in one communication, rather than drip-feeding individual questions – which again, is more time-consuming and less efficient.”

The Legal 500 covers barristers as well as law firms. Are there any strategic differences in how barristers’ chambers should prepare their submissions?

“Of course, the Bar is a very different beast, and submissions for this should partly ignore my earlier comment about individuals! But the part about being realistic should also qualify, and when it comes to getting silks and juniors into the listings, think of the bigger picture. If we have previously recommended 5 juniors, and the set has 25, don’t put them all forward as leading juniors – it is unrealistic to think that they are all “leading”, and then it’s difficult to see the wood for the trees within that set.

The submissions for law firms should focus on the work over the past 12 months, but with sets, while we want to see the key work done over the past year, we also need to see long-term work. The length of time on each case is, as a rule of thumb, much longer that for solicitors, so sets need to present a full body of evidence of work carried out by its tenants.

When it comes to the silks and juniors, don’t simply copy and past what is on the website, as we’re able to see that anyway. Take a bit of time to explain the demands of clients, and put some context into the cases that have been worked on.”

Does The Legal 500 have any plans to do something similar to the Chambers Confidential initiative – that is, allow firms to buy the complete, unadulterated feedback gathered during the research process?

“A question we get asked a lot, and one we have given a lot of thought to. Ultimately, part of our research comes from the clients, and we guarantee that any feedback they give us is confidential. In order to ensure that clients wish to continue to give us feedback, we feel that selling that information back to the firms is not the right thing to do for us as a business. As I mentioned earlier, if firms want feedback as to why they are ranked where they are, then we are more than happy to provide that feedback – free of charge.”

What initiatives does The Legal 500 have in the pipeline for the coming year that you’d like to tell the world about?

“So many I hardly know where to begin! Some of our initiatives we aren’t telling the world about yet, but I’ll keep you updated when we are able to – in fact, I’ll be able to let you know next week of a new initiative we have here in the UK, so stay tuned.

Obviously the main one that we are focusing on is the Corporate Counsel 100 Series, which is being rolled out globally. The first edition is focusing on the United States. It’s interesting that so many companies are publishing endless (and often the same) lists of the best lawyers in private practice, and not focusing on what really matters – the clients. The Corporate Counsel 100 Series aims to highlight the very best in innovative in-house, and the interviews that we have conducted with the in-house nominees have been illuminating, so we can’t wait to share that with our 2.5 million in-house readership. And obviously a key element will be launching the results at the Association of Corporate Counsel annual meeting in Los Angeles, and The Economist General Counsel Summit in London in October, where we will be the only research guide attending both of these events.

We have more in-house roundtables in the pipeline, and a new bespoke research department that will be producing a major survey in the first quarter of 2014 – more details to follow.

The Legal 500 is now covering Canada, and the results will go online in early October ready for the International Bar Association (IBA) annual conference in Boston. I’ll be at all these events, so if anyone wants to meet me there, then please do drop me a line at david.burgess@legal500.com.

In November we are launching The Legal 500 Deutschland, an expanded German-language guide that will cover approximately 500 of the leading firms in Germany, primarily for the domestic market. We’ve had a dedicated team of German researchers working on that since December of last year, so finally Germany will have an independent, in-depth research guide that clients and firms can rely on.

Any and all new initiatives, I will of course let you know about for you to let your readers know about over the forthcoming months.”

Hone Your Submissions

Of course, you know you’re great. But simply telling the directories this won’t get you anywhere – remember, hundreds of other firms and attorneys will be doing exactly the same thing. In all parts of the submission, and during the partner interview with the researcher, it’s vital to explain why. Why is this deal important? Why is our work cutting-edge? Why do we deserve to be ranked higher?

A strong, well-written submission is essential to achieving the rankings you deserve.

I have particular expertise in preparing compelling submissions for numerous international markets, across all types of law firms as well as barristers’ chambers, for all the main directories, including Chambers, Legal 500, US News-Best Law Firms, Best Lawyers, IFLR1000, Benchmark Litigation, and Managing IP.

I also have deep experience of drafting successful submissions for a multitude of awards and surveys, including for FT Innovative LawyersLegal WeekThe LawyerAmerican Lawyer, and The National Law Journal.

How I Can Help

  • Researching and drafting submissions for all key directories, awards and surveys.
  • Reviewing and editing existing submissions for format, substance, length and style.
  • Designing high-quality submission templates to improve the structure, clarity and effectiveness of submissions.

 

Managing Your Client References

So you’ve got your great submission ready to go into the directory. Well done… but that’s only half the battle.

The leading directories use client references as a key element of their research. It’s impossible to overstate the importance of this part of the process; glowing references from key clients are arguably becoming as important as providing a detailed and focused submission.

A firm won’t necessarily get ranked on the strength of client references alone – but it makes the decision not to rank a firm much harder if the researcher is faced with a list of third-party explanations of why a firm should be on the list.

But, there’s little benefit in providing clients who are unlikely to respond, or who aren’t going to give the researcher the right message. And no attorney wants to annoy their clients with endless reference requests. It’s a tricky balancing act.

How I Can Help

  • Implementation of a detailed process for guiding partners and marketing staff through the timing and strategy for bringing client references into the process.
  • Comprehensive strategic guidance regarding optimum client reference selection.
  • A detailed set of best practice materials explaining how to make sure your clients are kept in the loop throughout the directory research process, making it more likely they’ll respond.