8 reasons why rankings are important for law firms and lawyers

When people set goals for the year ahead, the SMART way is often recommended. The ‘M’ is particularly important because you can only achieve what you can measure. It makes the whole thing more objective and convincing.

This is where rankings come into play. An individual wants to measure their progress and achievement, so does an organization, and rankings are the measurable assessment, albeit less controllable, or are they? (Check out our article on the Do’s and Don’ts for Obtaining Legal Directories Rankings.)

We can easily write 100,000 words on why rankings are important for your firm, but if you are reading this, chances are you are working in the legal industry and are rather busy, so we have summarized the following bullet points for you if you are contemplating whether to continue with the tedious submission exercise:

1. Your current clients look at them

Have you ever received a congratulations email from your clients on your top tier ranking? If yes, congratulations indeed, your success is witnessed. Even if you are not in the top tier, your clients may have seen that too, just they probably wouldn’t send you an email about that.
One may say mandates are based on relationship and reputation, not on rankings, so it doesn’t matter where you are ranked or whether you are ranked, but it is somehow like parents and children — parents love their kids no matter they come first in class or not, but if they do, the parents surely feel proud.
More practically, increasingly more major corporations have included a prerequisite in their tender procedure — only law firms that are ranked (specifically in Chambers and Legal 500) in the relevant practice areas or jurisdictions would receive a tender invitation. No ranking, no RFP.
In addition, your good rankings are a shield for your clients — imagine they have instructed a third-tier law firm on an important project and it went south, their management might question why they had not instructed a top tier law firm instead, even though the quality of service might be exactly the same.

2. Your potential clients rely on them for unfamiliar practices and jurisdictions

Every informed decision involves research. Google is used millions of time a day and major legal directories also boast tens of thousands of views each month. No matter how reputable a global law firm is, there are clients (especially overseas ones) who don’t know about them.
There are independent research that shows general counsel and C-suite decision makers of multinational companies would consult legal directories before instruction an external counsel, either when they have totally no idea who are good at what in which country, or as a confirmation of their shortlisted options.
And as mentioned in #1 above, it is considered safer to instruct a ranked/highly ranked law firm for important projects as it is already endorsed by a third party.

3. Your future employees judge you based on them

Have you not seen the recruitment brochures of leading law firms? Why do you think they have included directories rankings in them? Major legal directories are distributed to top law schools across the US and the UK. Their online version is also viewed by graduates around the world who judge law firms based on their rankings like they judge a new acquaintance based on their number of Instagram followers.
The rankings are important when you try to pouch someone from another law firm too. If you and your competitors are focused on dispute resolution, do you think a candidate would prefer to join a lower tier law firm? Yes, if you pay more — and that’s the price of not having a (good) ranking. Anyway, you get the point here.

4. Your current employees’ morale is boosted by them

This is quite self-explanatory — your staff feel proud not only when your firm is ranked higher than your competitors. In fact, even within the firm, if your practice is constantly ranked in the top tier and another practice is always at the bottom or not ranked at all, who do you think speaks louder before the firm’s stakeholders? There are inter-department, inter-office and inter-jurisdiction competition you may not be aware of whether you like it or not.

5. Your competitors look up to/down on you with them

No, we are not trying to turn you lawyers into vain people (but we won’t judge you either if you brag about your rankings). We are actually thinking about your career progression. If you are not planning to stay in the same law firm forever, a ranking will surely make your CV shine and give you more say when negotiating with your potential employer. On the contrary, if you are one of the job candidates with a lower ranking than others, you may need to justify harder why you deserve the job more.

6. Your bonus or promotion could be dependent on them

We have worked in an international law firm too and we know rankings and rewards are not necessarily correlated in every firm, but we do know some who look at them during the annual performance review or partners promotion assessment.
We are not just talking about lawyers here. Rankings can be an indicator of a marketing team’s performance too. A number of law firms have full-time staff to look after just rankings and awards e.g. Baker McKenzie, Dentons, Jones Day, Kirkland & Ellis, Sidley Austin etc. These people will and should definitely pay attention to maintaining and gaining rankings for their firms.

7. It gives you a reason to connect with your clients

A subtle way to let your clients know about your rankings is to thank them (Check out our article Ways To Show Off Your Achievements Without Being Annoying). A grateful email to your client would not only make them feel valued, but it also gives you an excuse to take the client out for lunch or simply to catch up.
In fact, more organizations are producing rankings and awards for in-house lawyers as well. If it happens that your clients have also been ranked or awarded, it is certainly not a bad idea to initiate celebrations over some (or a lot of) booze.

8. You don’t need to think about what birthday present to buy for your mom

Don’t underestimate this. We have seen lawyers pour money into certificates, plaques and even the brick-like hard copy of directories that show their names next to a number — ‘1’. When asked why they do that when the information is available online anyway, they say their moms love seeing their success ‘tangible’, something they can show their neighbors and friends and anyone really. How sweet is that!
Thank you for reading until the end. We hope you’ll have your mama’s next birthday present sorted!