This month’s issue of Legal Business may be dedicated to the largest firms in the UK by revenue but sibling title The Legal 500 is a much more inclusive church. The latest UK solicitors guide includes no fewer than 1,154 distinct firms operating in the UK across nearly 10,000 distinct rankings, of which nearly 4,500 are in the all-important London market. And with client feedback levels up 50% to more than 50,000 responses across the UK, they should reflect general counsel opinion better than ever.
We’re going to be taking a closer look at the rankings themselves and the performance of the LB100 in the next issue of Legal Business but there are a few important points about the most recent research that I want to highlight now. This year, on top of my general drive towards pushing for quality at the top of our core City rankings, improving diversity and ensuring our rankings are as reflective of the current market as possible, we have made two new tangible changes.
The first will play a key role in our ongoing mission to boost diversity within our individual rankings. Whereas entry to our Hall of Fame section used to be determined solely by the number of years someone was ranked as a leading individual, this year editors and researchers for the London guide have been able to use their discretion about who enters.
This shift, which will be applied across all Legal 500 guides going forward – including next year’s regional UK rankings – removes one of the key barriers holding back representation of women and minority lawyers at the most senior level. Lower rates of partner promotion in the past, combined with the tendency for directories to serve as something of an echo chamber for a largely white, male, senior partnership, meant it was taking longer for lawyers who didn’t fit the mould to get recognised as leading individuals, reducing the chances of them making it into the Hall of Fame further still.
Allowing editor discretion as to who enters this elite ranking means you can already see some real change at the top in some of our key London rankings and, over time, this trend will continue, improving representation at all levels with the guide.
We’ve also taken further steps to address the old complaint that directories don’t change. We want and need to show the market as it is now and, as a consequence, there’s a lot of movement in the rankings themselves– something which firms may not always be happy about.
But crucially, we’ve also added a brand new category of ‘Firms to Watch’, which will allow us to more quickly identify new practices with strong potential that in the past may have had to wait some time before being recognised by us. In years gone by, new boutiques and firms that have made key lateral hires immediately prior to research may have had to wait until the following year’s research cycle, but this new form of recognition enables us to be more responsive to a fast-moving marketplace.
After three years at The Legal 500 (and hundreds of questions about ranking decisions over this time) I’m very aware that it is impossible to please everyone all of the time but equally it’s important to point out the steps we are taking to listen to the market and react.
As such, I’m hopeful these changes will play a key part in ensuring that the rankings become as reflective of the dynamic UK legal market as possible and that we continue to play our part in boosting the profile of the best lawyers, regardless of race or gender.
Georgina Stanley, Editor, The Legal 500 UK
georgina.stanley@legalease.co.uk