Legal Directory Submissions Guide 2023
2 Welcome To Tier One Rankings Tier One Rankings has only one focus: to see you succeed with your directories and awards submissions. Your firm is unique. Let our team of experts guide you in how to best demonstrate your assets and help you highlight what differentiates your lawyers from their peers. We will show you how to improve the odds of receiving the recognition your firm deserves. Powered by Nishlis Legal Marketing, Tier One Rankings us comprised of legal experts, strategists and legal journalists that will be by your side to help you focus on: • Preparation ahead of rankings • Submission guidance through strategic planning • Help during the submission writing stage We can manage your entire submissions process, edit your drafts; provide strategic advice to your partners on submissions best practices while also train your marketing teams on how to effectively produce submission content that is not just more strategic but also more impactful.
3 Contents Legal Directory: A big-ticket and resilient industry ........... 4 What are legal directories? ............................................. 4 Why do law firms work with them? ................................ 4 Who are the most reputable legal directories? ............... 4 How do directories research the legal market and how can my firm enter or improve?......................................... 6 IFLR1000 ....................................................................... 8 Chambers ....................................................................... 9 Legal 500 ...................................................................... 10 Legal Awards ................................................................... 11
4 Legal Directory: A big-ticket and resilient industry As a distinct industry in its own right, reports suggest that the legal directories business (as a subset of the broader legal publishing and media industry) is worth USD 250 million a year. Legal directories are not new — the first directory, Martindale-Hubbell, began publication in the nineteenth century in the US — but the modern form of the industry took shape in the 1980s and 1990s and is based mostly in London and New York, though this has begun to change. What are legal directories? The term “legal directories” describes a broad range of products and services that research, list, rank, analyze, and assess lawyers and law firms. Depending on whether you are in a large international firm or a small consumer-focused firm, a directory can be a basic, Yellow Pages-style listing, or synonymous with preparing detailed written submissions, as we do for Chambers, Legal 500 and IFLR1000, among others. These directories employ large teams of researchers to assess the relative qualities of different law firms, each with slightly different methodologies, templates and deadlines. Why do law firms work with them? Legal directories are a fixture of the legal industry, and most law firms engage to some extent with them as a way of promoting their practices to the outside world. How? A ranking in the guide, especially a top tier ranking is considered to be: • A prestigious showcase of your reputation to an international audience • One tool to win clients in a competitive market as it is an independent and objective verification of your abilities
5 • A valuable third-party endorsement is better than a law firm’s own claims about its skills and expertise • Champions the achievements of a firm. Much of a lawyer’s work is sensitive and takes place behind the scenes, but occasionally they work on a career-defining case or transaction that leads to a great outcome for a client. Directories recognize such achievements, and celebrate the excellence and success of lawyers. • Raising the profile of a firm. Law firms are low key and will rarely grab the headlines in the mainstream news and business media, so specialist publications like legal directories have emerged to publicize law firms’ activities. • Useful for brochures, pitches, press releases, other award submissions, advertising, social media. • Tool to benchmark yourselves against your competitors. • A boost in driving lawyer recruitment – lateral hires, new hires, summer interns, etc. • Important because clients and General Counsel (“GC”) look at them when making decisions, either drawing up shortlists of firms they want to work with OR confirming their choice. A buyer of legal services can choose from a large range of potential providers for most projects. That creates demand for legal directories, as law firms seek to promote and differentiate themselves from other firms in the market so legal directories provide buyers of legal services with helpful information that enables them to make a more informed choice as to legal advisor. While directories are rarely the biggest factor that influences buyer behavior, numerous surveys show that consumers of legal services read directories, and that directories play a role in helping them to decide which law firm to select. Who are the most reputable and prized legal directories? Two British legal publishing entrepreneurs, Michael Chambers and John Pritchard, developed a new style of directory in the mid-1980s in London – both Lee and Eleni worked in senior roles as editors here. The founders of Chambers & Partners and Legal 500 respectively, pioneered a new concept in legal directory publishing in which law firms were asked to prepare written submissions highlighting their achievements over the last year. Teams of researchers and editors would review the materials and supplement them with interviews with lawyers and clients. Once the research was finalized, the directories published tiered rankings of firms and lawyers, broken down by practice, with accompanying editorial commentary and quotes. The Chambers/Legal 500 formula has been successful over the last 30+ years, despite competition from technologydriven rivals, and both organizations have expanded globally to the point where most commercial law firms of a certain size are now exposed to them and/
6 or engage with them. While ownership has changed, they have expanded the number of guides, events, awards and are constantly adding new products and services. . Further directories of this type emerged, many focused on a particular industry or practice area. There is also Global Competition Review, Infrastructure Journal, Benchmark Litigation, IAM Patent 1000, and other emerging players. “Research-led directories such as Chambers & Partners and Legal 500 are considered to be the most sophisticated type of legal directory and are most favored by large business law firms because of their more rigorous methodology and selection process” Because of the expansion of these products, the largest law firms send more than 1,000 submissions a year across multiple offices to various directories and awards organizations, employ staff to manage the submission process and hire consultants like us to strategize, manage, write, edit and review. Chambers, Legal 500, and others draw their revenue from firms advertising in the directories, although the placement of ads and profiles does not influence the performance of the firm in the independent research assessment, and the profile department and the research department do not interact during the research process. U.S. focused Similar products were established in markets such as Canada (Lexpert), Germany (Juve), Italy (TopLegal), Latin America (Latin Lawyer 250), and Asia (Asialaw Profiles). There are domestic guides also in Israel – BDI and Dun’s. Meanwhile in the US, there is the reputable Best Lawyers. Formed by two Harvard graduates, Best Lawyers established a leading lawyer directory around the concept of “peer review.” Lawyers would only get labeled a “Best Lawyer” and listed in the directory if they received enough recommendations from other lawyers in private practice. Other businesses followed their lead, and by the 1990s, the likes of Super Lawyers (launched in Minneapolis, and now owned by Thomson Reuters), Who’s Who Legal (from the U.K.-based Law Business Research), Expert Guides (Euromoney), and others produced similar products. How do directories research the legal market and how can my firm enter or improve in the rankings? Each of the guides you will work on has a distinct methodology, as well as their own definitions and timeframes for research. Whether you are meeting with lawyers to collect information, drafting a submission or writing a *shop window within a submission, it is important to focus on the needs of the guides:
7 It’s about what they need to see, not what you want to say. So we must be familiar with their methodology, meet their submission criteria, and submit before the deadlines. Between the guides, there are slightly different ranking weights but a firm’s chances hinge on the 1) quality of work 2) client feedback 3) peer feedback and acknowledgement. Let’s take each of these in turn: 1) The quality of work is showcased in “matter descriptions” or “work highlights” which ask the lawyer for some basic facts, as well as the key factor: What made it complex or innovative? This can be determined by a range of factors, such as whether the transaction or case had cross-border and multi-jurisdictional elements to it, whether the work tested a new piece of legislation, was very high value, was on trend, even against trend, or especially critical for the client or the industry in which they operate. It is very important to be clear here when writing as the researchers will often scan these documents, as they receive so many submissions with so many matters to review. The more confusing or long the text is, the less likely they are to reread it and try to fully understand. 2) Client feedback comes from referees selected by the law firms. They should be willing, available, enthusiastic and keen to speak to the researcher for 10-15 minutes by phone or via email. There are stronger referees, such as GCs and other lawyers, as well as other professionals, such as accountants, surveyors, etc. These referees’ details are manually entered onto an excel spreadsheet template created by the publisher of the directory and a requirement and good general recommendation is not to go over 20 referees. Referees will be contacted by the researcher once the submission research has started. Often at the start, they will be contacted a few times if there is time, so the referee should check their spam folders to see if they have been contacted. A key reason why law firms or lawyers do not make progress in the firm or individual rankings is the lack of client feedback, which denies the researcher and editor the evidence to make any changes. 3) While the work and client feedback are paramount, there still needs to be market acknowledgement from other law firms in the field or sector that you are active. Your visibility can be based on attendance at network or industry events, hosting seminars, posting valuable posts on LinkedIn and expanding your followers. * a shop window is the section in the Chambers, Legal 500 or IFLR Word template that asks for the firm’s strengths and selling points – hence we refer to it as a shop window. Typically, around 500 words, this should be a clear, concise story of the firm’s strengths, new wins and hires, niche areas of expertise and market share, if we can add that.
8 Owned by Euromoney, International Financial Law Review (IFLR) is the market-leading financial law publication for lawyers specializing in international finance in financial institutions, corporates and in private practice. Its IFLR1000 guides rank 5,000 law firms and more than 21,000 lawyers across 12 practice areas and 250 jurisdictions. Website: https://www.iflr1000.com/ First published: 1982 Ranks: Only Banking; Capital markets; Financial services regulatory; Investment funds; M&A / transactional private equity; Project development; Project finance; and Restructuring and insolvency Main guides: IFLR1000 US, IFLR EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa), IFLR China, and others. SUBMITTING What? One work highlights document and one referee spreadsheet. How? The submissions are uploaded through a portal. You can create an account or log in to do that here. Methodology: Methodology and FAQs are listed here Definitions: The categories and their definitions are listed here TIMEFRAMES Timetable: Research dates can be found here Submission Deadline: Feb 1, 2023 Research interviews conducted: January – August 2023 Client Referee Feedback Survey: March – April 2023 Peer Feedback Survey: March – April 2023 Research publication dates: to be announced in coming months
9 Today owned by private equity firm, Inflexion, Chambers and Partners was the pioneer in legal publishing. Starting over 30 years ago, today the London-based company conducts over 185,000 interviews and surveys annually, with a team of over 200 professional researchers, speaking multiple languages. Since the firm’s founding in 1989, the company’s independent research and rankings are valued in over 200 jurisdictions where it operates. Website: https://chambers.com/ First published: 1990 Ranks: Multiple practice areas and sectors across most of the world’s jurisdictions. Check which sections they will research in the research schedule here Main guides: Chambers Global, Chambers Europe, Chambers UK, Chambers USA, Chambers Canada, Chambers Asia Pacific, Chambers Greater China, Chambers Latin America, Chambers Brazil, as well as Chambers FinTech and Chambers High Net Worth. SUBMITTING What? One work highlights document (in Word) and one referee spreadsheet. How? The submissions are uploaded through the Chambers website. You can create an account, log in or request a password here. Methodology: Research process and other information is here Definitions: As an example, the categories and their definitions for Global are listed here and for Europe are listed here. TIMEFRAMES Timetable: Research schedule by country and the name/contact details for the researcher can be found here Submission Deadline: See research schedule - here Research interviews conducted: Typically in the month following the submission deadline Research publication dates: They vary – and can be seen here – but Chambers Global 2023 is published on 16 February 2023, Chambers Europe on 16 March, 2023.
10 Owned by Legalease, the Legal 500 has been analyzing the capabilities of law firms across the world, with a comprehensive research schedule revised and updated every year to bring the most up-to-date vision of the global legal market. The Legal 500 produces a wide ranging series of resources for in-house lawyers including roundtables, client insight reports, and recognizes and rewards the best in-house lawyers through our GC Powerlist series and The Legal 500 Awards. There is also a recently announced Legal 500 Green Guide, aimed at the sustainable practices implemented by law firms. Website: https://www.legal500.com/ Founded: 1987 Ranks: Multiple practice areas and sectors in the EMEA guide – see here for more details. The Legal 500 US guide focuses on national tables only. Main guides: Legal 500 EMEA, Legal 500 UK, Legal 500 US, among others. SUBMITTING What? One work highlights document and one referee spreadsheet. How? To send your submissions to Legal 500, it is done via a portal. Please visit submissions.legal500.com and follow the onscreen prompts to send new documents. If you don’t have log in details or have problems logging in, contact the guide. Methodology: Methodology and FAQs are listed here. Definitions: The categories and their definitions are listed here. TIMEFRAMES Timetable: Research dates can be found here. Submission Deadline: They vary but are listed here but Legal 500 EMEA’s deadline is in August. Research interviews conducted: They vary but can be seen here but Legal 500 EMEA interviews are in September and October. Research publication dates: They vary but can be seen here - Legal 500 EMEA in April 2023
11 Awards: There are many. Which are the most valuable? Awards are distinct from directories to some extent, but they perform a similar function, and are often produced by the same legal and business publishers that run annual directories and surveys, and draw on the same resources. Hundreds, if not thousands, of awards cater to almost every legal practice, industry, and market. Like the rankings themselves, there are also many credible awards, as well as some meaningless ones. The Financial Times “Innovative Lawyers” has blazed a trail but there are many worthwhile ones to consider, each with their own criteria, timeframes and independent panels of judges. These include: • Asia Legal Business Awards • IFLR Awards • Infrastructure Journal Awards • LMG Life Sciences Awards • Mergermarket Awards • The Lawyer Awards • Women in Business Law Awards Outside of legal publishing, most industry sectors have a healthy trade press. As well as covering news and features, many produce an annual survey or supplement akin to a directory — and they will often include lawyers. While the circulations of such journals and magazines are lower than the more comprehensive, multipractice, multi-country directories, their focus is a strength. Lawyers want to get noticed by the people who work in the industries that they advise on, so with dedicated teams of journalists who know their field, such surveys and directories can be influential within a certain niche. There are too many to mention, but whether it’s private client or healthcare or intellectual property, lawyers should always consider promoting their practice to industry-focused publications.
12 Questionable Directories/ Awards With the growth of the legal directories industry, there has been a growth in speculative products with minimal credibility that use pushy sales tactics to try and get in on the market. Some are outright scams while others are legitimate, but make exaggerated claims about the quality of their products and readership. Law firms should check the history and methodology and speak with us to gain market feedback on their reputation. What is the difference between rankings and League Tables? League tables can be broadly described as those products that measure law firm deal activity through factual data rather than more subjective methodologies. Many league tables originated in the 1990s as demand rose for more sophisticated and transparent deal reporting. The likes of Mergermarket, Dealogic, Thomson Reuters, Bloomberg, and others are well known in this space. For many deal-focused firms, league table performance is just as — if not more important — than how they fare in directories. As well as areas that lend themselves easily to deal reporting — M&A, finance, capital markets, project finance — league table-style surveys are prevalent in other practice areas where quantitative data can be collected, measured, and assessed. For example, there are surveys that list those law firms handling the most project financings (Infrastructure Journal), as well as mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in Mergermarket, and more.
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