As research for Chambers Global and Chambers Europe 2026 gets underway, researchers will now be reaching out to referees to get their feedback. Referee responses are a vital part of the research process as Chambers and Partners: what Chambers hear from a firm’s referees accounts for about half of the information behind their final ranking decisions. 

There can be times however when a researcher struggles to get in touch with a particular referee. Their emails may bounce or be caught in spam filters for example, or their contact details may not be updated- sometimes an email can just be missed by that referee. To help ensure that your firm is getting as much feedback as possible, this is what we recommend if you experience any issues:

• When research begins, notify all of your referees to expect emails from Chambers. (The research schedule will note when it begins and can be found here: https://chambers.com/about-us/research-schedule/ ) Chambers will always get in touch by email first, either with a survey or an invitation to a phone interview.
• If you have access to the Research Management Tool, you can check it regularly to update on progress. If there are particular problems with a certain referee, the RMT will flag them and offer advice on what to do.
• If a referee has been flagged as ‘Unsubscribed’ by the RMT, this means that referee has signified to Chambers that they do not want to receive any of their correspondence, in which case a researcher will not reach out to them. This can be remedied by forwarding written consent from the referee to the researcher. They can then get in touch with that referee as normal.
• If a referee notes that they have not received Chambers’ correspondence, we do not recommend just asking the researcher to send another email. It will likely be an ineffective approach, because any further emails could suffer from the same issue that the first one did (whatever that issue may be, eg spam filter, bouncing back or being accidentally missed.)
• Instead, we would recommend that around one week after research starts, follow up with referees encouraging them to respond to the Chambers researcher. Your email should note that if they have not heard from Chambers, they can reach out to the researcher directly providing their feedback about the firm and lawyers. You can also include the researcher’s email address in this reminder.
• To save time and back and forth, the referee can just put their thoughts into an email and send it straight to the researcher- alternatively, they can get in touch and ask the researcher for a questionnaire.
• Research typically closes around 4 weeks after it begins, so all feedback should be sent in by then (larger sections may have longer research windows.)