Those of you in the UK with fond memories of the hefty The Legal 500 books dropping onto your desks are in for a change. The publication later this year of the latest research will be environmentally-friendly and move to a wholly digital platform via legal500.com. Our ambition is to create the best possible exposure for law firms’ practices via our online rankings. We want to ensure the most relevant information on law firms and sets is readily available to clients, creating the most comprehensive and user-friendly research service available anywhere online.
Moving The Legal 500 to a digital platform gives legal500.com the flexibility to offer that expanded service. As we seek to improve and expand our published information on the market, we want to work in partnership with law firms and sets, so that our evolving research reflects what you need to convey to clients seeking your firm’s help.
The first step is to change the way we are asking firms to submit (The Bar will remain unchanged for 2018, but we will soon start consulting over a new submission process). We want to make it easier for firms to put forward information to our researchers, and also improve the efficiency of the research process, allowing more time for interviewing firms and clients.
It is important to note that we are not changing the content of the submissions but the way in which they are uploaded to us. We are not asking firms to do more work or change the information you are providing.
Firms applying for the London sections and the patent and trade mark attorneys (PATMA) rankings have the following options:
- download and use the template Word document. This is a replica of the online form which you can fill in offline. You can access the form here. Once completed, the template document can be sent to editorial@legal500.com.
- use the online form to fill in and submit your submissions. You can save a draft of your online form at any time while you’re working on it. You can also generate a preview of the form for printing/circulating among stakeholders for sign-off. Once the form is completed and you hit publish, no further changes can be made. Any subsequent amends should be emailed to editorial@legal500.com.
Those applying for the ‘Firms outside of London’ sections should have already completed the submissions, but for the few latecomers, to guarantee consideration for this year’s guide, those submissions must be with us by 16 February at the latest.
As to frequently-asked questions:
How do I access the online form?
UK-based firms will have been emailed login details to access our online portal. If your firm has not received a login, please email submissions@legal500.com to request access.
The online form can be accessed at the following link: https://submissions.legal500.com/.
How do I fill it in?
When filling in the form, please refer to the editorial guidelines. These can be found here by scrolling down the page and clicking on the banner titled ‘THE LEGAL 500 UNITED KINGDOM: SOLICITORS, PATMA AND MEDIATORS’. The guidelines/FAQs/referee spreadsheets will be accessible from the expanded content.
I’ve already begun to compile my submissions using a different template – do I need to switch to the new online form/Word document template?
We encourage firms to use the new form where possible – the more that use it and provide feedback, the better the experience will be. However, we appreciate that some firms will have already started putting together submissions using their own templates. Firms will still be able to submit those documents in the usual way.
If you have any questions about the process, please email submissions@legal500.com
We look forward to kicking off the interview process very soon, and starting on the 31st edition of The Legal 500 United Kingdom.
David Burgess
Publishing director
The Legal 500 Series
The Legal 500 is a sister brand to Legal Business.
