• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Pearson Communications

Legal Directories Consultant

  • Services
  • Lloyd Pearson
  • Blog
  • Subscribe
  • Contact

May 10, 2018

Best Lawyers Sold to Private Equity Firm

Leading legal directory Best Lawyers has been acquired by a private equity firm.

Los Angeles-based investor Levine Leichtman Capital Partners has partnered with management to acquire the US-based company that pioneered the peer review style of lawyer directory.

Phillip Greer (pictured), who became president five years ago, led the Best Lawyers management team.

Best Lawyers, which is headquartered in Aiken, South Carolina, and has additional offices in Brooklyn, New York, and Jacksonville, Florida, was launched in the 1980s, aiming to identify the best lawyers based on who received the most recommendations from fellow practicing attorneys.

Over the years it grew substantially, expanded internationally, and now reaches over 22 million professionals.

Best Lawyers operates via three main brands – Best Lawyers (its flagship peer review directory), Best Law Firms (a collaboration with US News & World Report that began in 2010) and the recently launched Lawyer Directory – a comprehensive listing of US lawyers.

The deal also marks the end of more than 30 years of ownership by Steven Naifeh, who has retired from his position as chief executive of Best Lawyers.

As well as being a legal directory innovator, Naifeh, along with his former partner and Best Lawyers co-founder Gregory White Smith, who died in 2014, is a respected author and art historian, having published among others the definitive biography of Vincent van Gogh and a Pulitzer Prize winning biography of Jackson Pollock.

Levine Leichtman Capital Partners invests in middle market companies in the United States and Europe, and has managed around USD 10 billion of institutional capital since its inception.

Honigman Miller Schwartz advised Levine Leichtman Capital Partners, and Munger, Tolles & Olson advised the sellers.

Share the post "Best Lawyers Sold to Private Equity Firm"

  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • Email

Filed Under: Legal Awards, Legal Directories, Legal Events, Legal Marketing, Legal Media, Legal Publishing, Legal Surveys Tagged With: Best Lawyers, US News

By Lloyd Pearson

Legal directories consultant serving law firms worldwide.

Contact me

Reader Interactions

Trackbacks

  1. Q+A With Best Lawyers CEO Following Recent Acquisition – Pearson Communications says:
    May 16, 2018 at 11:51 am

    […] the recent acquisition of leading directory publisher Best Lawyers by private equity firm Levine Leichtman I spoke with […]

    Reply
  2. Best Lawyers Launches New US Lawyer Directory – Pearson Communications says:
    May 30, 2018 at 9:48 am

    […] this month Best Lawyers was acquired by a private equity firm, Levine Leichtman Capital […]

    Reply
  3. LBR & Globe Merge in Private Equity-Backed Legal Media Deal – Pearson Communications says:
    July 6, 2018 at 1:03 am

    […] notched up three major legal publishing acquisitions. Don’t forget that Levine Leichtman also just bought Best Lawyers in the US last month (a deal that includes the influential Best Law Firm survey run in tandem with […]

    Reply
  4. Legal Directories & Media: 2018 Review – Pearson Communications says:
    December 20, 2018 at 4:06 pm

    […] Levine Leichtman was the hungriest animal, starting the year by gobbling up Law Business Research, eating up Best Lawyers a few months later, then for pudding bringing in Globe as part of a combination with Law Business […]

    Reply
  5. New Private Equity Firm Comes in for Best Lawyers – Pearson Communications says:
    December 1, 2021 at 2:36 pm

    […] Angeles-based investor Levine Leichtman Capital Partners partnered with management in 2018 to acquire Best Lawyers, the Georgia-based company that pioneered the peer review style of lawyer […]

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Subscribe

Recent Posts

  • Improve Legal Directory Submissions With Active Sentences
  • Lawdragon Names World’s Top 100 Legal Consultants for 2022
  • New Private Equity Firm Comes in for Best Lawyers
  • Which Lawyers Shouldn’t Bother With Legal Directories?
  • Lawdragon – Top 100 Legal Consultants 2021

Tags

Above The Law AccessSolicitor ALM American Lawyer Avvo Benchmark Awards Benchmark Litigation Best Lawyers Bloomberg British Legal Awards BTI Chambers & Partners Euromoney FindLaw FT Innovative Lawyers IFLR IFLR1000 Incisive Media International Law Office Internet Brands Law360 Law Business Research LawDingo Lawdragon Law Firm Media Professionals LawPath Lawyers.Com Legal 500 Legal Business Legalease Legal Marketing Association Legal Media Group Legal Week Lexis Nexis Lexpert Martindale-Hubbell National Law Journal Nolo Practical Law Company RSG Consulting Super Lawyers The Lawyer Thomson Reuters US News Vault

Footer

Contact

lloyd@pearsoncomms.com
+44 1273 607 227

About

International legal directories consultant

Follow

  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • RSS
  • Twitter

Copyright © 2023 · 393 Communications Ltd · All Rights Reserved