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At this time of year all the law firms are anxiously looking at the latest edition of the Legal 500 and seeing how they have fared. For the uninitiated the Legal 500 is one of the two independent guides to legal services published each year.

This year’s edition was published a couple of days ago and the emails have already started coming in from clients congratulating on how the firm has fared and to those individuals praised by name.

So how influential is the guide?

The first thing to be aware of is that the researchers spend all year gathering market intelligence on the firms in question – it’s not just a two minute affair. Secondly, although they interview the law firms themselves, the researchers also speak to their competitors and to nominated clients to get independent views on how a firm is faring. Many of the researchers are also journalists, so have gained an insight into the legal market as part of their day to day job. 

There is therefore quite a lot of information available before the entry is written which is not provided by the law firm and over which they have no control. The basic information on how many lawyers undertake the particular form of work is supplied by the firms themselves. 

The other area that the lawyers provide the researchers with material on are the matters/cases and individuals that deserve to be the highlights of the year.  As you’d expect, the final results do not directly reflect this information (otherwise everyone will have been recommended!).

But is the information reliable?

In the main the directories make a very good attempt to reflect the realities rather than being swayed by the increasingly sophisticated PR that bigger law firms now use. On the other hand, trying to produce an accurate description of what a legal team has been doing over the past year and how that compares with their competitors is very difficult. This is particularly so when the size of the team doing the work may be vastly different from one firm to another and therefore the strength in depth of expertise across the firm very different (which is the sort of information a potential client may be interested in).

Conveying this in a few words is exceedingly difficult; how can you fully reflect the work and standing of a legal practice in two sentences? The directories also put law firms into tiers of expertise which show at a glance the top flight firms in each area of law. Sometimes the law firms themselves find it difficult to square their knowledge of the market with the rankings but they are, overall, useful guidance if not infallible.

So should you look at the directories?

Many people will never choose a lawyer through the directories but they may well find it useful to check on how their chosen law firm fares. They may also have a firm appointed as a panel firm and be considering whether to use their services in an area of law they haven’t used them for previously. A quick check in the directory might help in that decision. Equally for corporate clients based outside the UK it will be very helpful to have an independent view on law firms’ expertise.

As with any ranking and research, there is an element of subjectivity; what really makes one law firm better than another.  But as a key part in reviewing the legal sector, the directories help clients provide some clarity in what is a crowded marketplace.