Legal 500 Corporate Counsel 100

Last week Legal 500 launched a new survey of in-house lawyers, the Legal 500 Corporate Counsel 100.

A departure from its usual business of highlighting private practice lawyers, the survey turns its attention to the in-house community and aims to reveal 100 of the most influential in-house lawyers in U.S business today.

I spoke to the mover behind the new list, Legal 500 publishing director David Burgess, for more information:

“The desire to do this list emerged out of some thinking at our end, plus an increasing number of conversations with corporate counsel.

As a legal directory, we are primarily about the end user – the buyer of legal services.

As we were talking to in-house counsel, we asked them what they wanted to see, and we were interested to discover that they want to know more about their peer group – who is making a difference within the in-house world.

We do 250,000 interviews a year across the Legal 500 guides, so are well placed to do this sort of survey.

Many of our website readers are corporate counsel. That’s our market.

We want to celebrate excellence within the in-house part of the profession.

Working as a corporate counsel can be a lonely job – so we’re saying: you’re not on your own, there’s others out there pushing the role forward.”

Naturally, the survey will draw heavily on the Legal 500’s existing research and contacts, and the company plans to speak to key partners at leading law firms to identify the most powerful legal advisors in the corporate world.

The 100 selected in-house lawyers will not be ranked or tiered, but grouped together in a single list.

Firms are invited to steer the Legal 500 in the right direction by nominating suitable corporate counsel.

The Legal 500 team will then pick up the baton and assess their credentials.

Nominations must be in by July 31 2013, and interviews with corporate counsel and firms take place from June 17 2013 to August 16 2013.

The final survey will be available at the International Bar Association annual conference in Boston from October 6-11 2013.