Today sees the launch of the first ever Best Lawyers–U.S. News & World Report “Best Law Firms in America” survey.
Click here to see the full results.
Given the profile of US News, its long association with rankings, added to Best Lawyers’ established name in the legal sector, I expect this survey to cause a big stir in the market.
I also expect this survey will quickly establish itself as one of the most influential in the US market, and law firms will actively engage in the process each year.
U.S. News & World Report, one of the leading news magazines in the U.S, is well known for its law school rankings, but in 2009 announced that it would partner with the attorney peer review search company, Best Lawyers, to publish law firm rankings.
The methodology for “Best Law Firms in America” involved surveying thousands of law firm clients, leading lawyers, law firm managers, marketing and recruiting officers.
They were asked what factors they considered vital for clients hiring law firms, for lawyers choosing a firm to refer a legal matter to, and for lawyers seeking employment.
The response was impressive: 1,859 firms participated in the surveys, 8,842 lawyers, and 9,514 clients – including every Fortune 100 company and 587 of the Fortune 1000 companies.
In addition to information from these surveys, the rankings incorporate the 3.1 million evaluations of 39,372 individual leading lawyers collected by Best Lawyers in its most recent annual survey.
Firms with the highest overall scores were ranked in 81 practice areas in 171 metropolitan areas and 7 states, and in national lists covering 39 practice areas.
Distribution is also impressive: all first-tier national rankings will appear in the October hardcopy edition of U.S. News & World Report. This will reach 1 million subscribers, total readership is nearly 10 million, and the usnews.com site currently receives more than 7 million unique hits per month.
The first-tier national and metropolitan rankings will also appear in a stand-alone publication being mailed on September 15 in print to 30,000 general counsel and in digital form to 55,000 private practice lawyers
For more information, click here to read a question and answer session I conducted with the senior executives at Best Lawyers.
[…] Launched in September 2010, the survey quickly established itself as one of the most influential in the US market. […]