Every year, law firms undertake the substantial task of completing Chambers USA and/or Legal 500 submissions in hopes of being recognized or improving their rankings in these publications. Being ranked provides businesses with an indication of a firm’s quality and professionalism in its work with clients.
For legal marketers, completing these submissions is a lengthy and time-consuming process, often requiring more than 45 hours for each submission. Most law firm practice group leaders are familiar with Chambers & Partners’ USA rankings, but Legal 500 is still somewhat unknown. On the surface, the two rankings appear similar, but there are some key differences.
How Are Chambers USA and Legal 500 Similar?
Both ranking directories were founded in England in the 1980s and publish high-quality annual guides. They have both expanded their business overseas and now provide legal ranking services in jurisdictions around the world, including the U.S., Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Africa and the Caribbean, among others.
Every year, Legal 500 and Chambers & Partners analyze the capabilities of law firms globally using a comprehensive research process to review and update their rankings and provide an up-to-date snapshot of the global legal market. These tables are broken into tiers reflecting each publisher’s view of the quality of a firm.
The research staff for both offices are largely based in London. Their annual research cycle is comprehensive, pulling from detailed and lengthy editorial submissions sent by law firms, interviews conducted with law firms and client interviews. The results of this thorough research are published online each year and are broken down by geography and practice area.
Beyond rankings, both companies offer related products, such as legal events, awards by country, research reports and sponsored editorial events.
How Do Chambers USA and Legal 500 Differ?
After publishing its original UK directory, Legal 500 established itself overseas first with its Europe, Middle East and Africa directory and its Asia Pacific directory, before moving on to the U.S. Chambers, on the other hand, first expanded to the U.S. Because of the differences in their expansions, Chambers has a better reputation in the U.S. However, at this point, both Chambers & Partners and Legal 500 have established credibility in the U.S. market.
Legal 500 is part of the legal publishing company Legalease, which produces The GC Powerlist, a series of publications highlighting influential in-house lawyers; Legal Business, a monthly magazine for the UK; and The Lex 100, a comparative guide of law firms for students, awards and roundtable events. In addition to its annual guides, Chambers & Partners publishes a Professional Advisers series, which features an international table of the leading law firms among several sectors alongside extensive research into a range of other professional services firms in countries around the world. Currently, Chambers & Partners publishes guides in the areas of high net worth, fintech, life sciences and litigation support, as well as an annual guide about leading general counsel titled GC Influencers. Additionally, Chambers has expanded its offerings to include editors’ receptions, awards and forums.
The research staff for Chambers & Partners is larger, with around 150 full-time editors and researchers; Legal 500 lists almost 60 editors and researchers on its website. Most of the Chambers research staff is based in the company’s office in London; however, Chambers recently opened offices in the U.S. and plan to open offices in other markets. Legal 500 supplements its London-based staff with freelance writers who specialize in the legal industry. The researchers for Legal 500 regularly visit law firms to conduct interviews in person, often spending several hours with a firm; Chambers has only recently started sending researchers to the U.S. to conduct interviews in person.
Beyond their expansions, product offerings and research staff, aspects of the actual rankings are different. In most jurisdictions, Chambers publishes law firm rankings and individual attorney rankings at the national, state and — new this year — metropolitan level when appropriate. There are some instances where Chambers ranks firms but not attorneys and vice versa. Legal 500 rankings are national in scope and focus on providing a snapshot of the market based on the overall strength and depth of a practice group.
That said, in recent years Legal 500 has introduced “Leading Lawyer,” “Next Generation” and “Rising Star” attorney rankings. Legal 500 does not rank attorneys within each designation, but it does highlight a handful of attorneys in each section. Small and solo practitioners are included in the rankings, because Legal 500 is focused on the quality of the work within a practice area and not the breadth. Legal 500’s rankings also often reflect changes in the marketplace more quickly.
The differences in the breadth of the guides are reflected in their research schedules. While the deadlines for both publications remain largely the same from year to year, Legal 500 submission deadlines are in early November and its research process typically takes place over a few months. Chambers submission deadlines are spread over several months, from June through November, and its research process stretches well over seven months. Legal 500 will announce its research schedule this summer, and Chambers announces its schedule in late April each year.
Both publishers’ editorial submission forms and referee submissions are largely similar. Last year, Legal 500 rolled out a tool for subscribers to use to populate its submission document based on the information used to complete a firm’s Chambers’ editorial submission. Some firms had issues with the conversion tool, and Legal 500 has worked to improve the process for the upcoming research phase.
The main difference between the two submissions is the number of referees a firm may submit: Chambers limits firms to 20 referees per practice area submission while Legal 500 allows for an unlimited number of referees to be submitted.
If you’d like more tips on managing your Chambers USA and Legal 500 submissions, watch our webinar about how to handle Chambers submissions. For more information and tips to improve your Chambers submission process or write a winning nomination, contact me, Susan Holmes, at sholmes@jaffepr.com.