Chambers USA – How Special Are Your Attorneys?

Anyone who has worked in a law firm marketing department will have heard an attorney say this:

“I don’t want to be in the directory unless I’m first tier.  It’s either first tier or not at all”

Well, here are some statistics to set your attorneys’ Chambers performance into context.

The figures were provided by Laura Mills, the new Chambers USA Editor, over lunch yesterday.

There are a total of 16,003 individual lawyers ranked in Chambers USA, and 17,500 individual lawyer rankings.

The latter figure includes attorneys who are ranked in multiple sections.

Also in Chambers USA, there are 1,321 different firms ranked, and a total of 6,105 firm rankings (many larger firms are of course recommended in multiple sections)

So, what does this mean?

According to the American Bar Association, there were 1,143,358 active attorneys in the United States in 2007.

This means that only 1.4% of all the attorneys in the U.S are recommended in Chambers USA.

Even factoring in government and in-house lawyers, it’s still a small percentage.

It might not keep every Type A lawyer in your firm happy, but it could be a crumb of comfort for the partner who has been “stuck” in tier three for a few years.

“You might be tier three, but you’re tier three of a 1.4% elite!”