Making the Most of the Rankings and Awards Process

Written By Meg Pritchard, Principal and Founder

A perennial question in legal services marketing is whether recognitions and rankings such as Chambers and Legal 500 actually have any impact on legal hiring. Just this week alone, I listened to two different guests on the same legal marketing podcast discuss this question. (The upshot: rankings are not entirely inconsequential, but they are not as impactful as the ranking organizations want you to believe.)

Participating in these programs is time-consuming and labor-intensive for lawyers and marketing professionals. Beyond the costs of those resources (or the cost of hiring an outsourced resource to assist with the submissions process), these programs are becoming increasingly expensive in other ways. Call it “shrinkflation.” While research-based ranking programs are typically not “pay to play” in that you don’t pay to submit, what you receive “for free” seems to be shrinking as the organizations running these programs offer more and costlier paid add-ons—enhanced firm and lawyer profiles, client and market intelligence reports, and extra “tools” for better submission development and management, for example.

Despite the increasing costs associated with these programs, firms don’t seem to be dropping out of them altogether. The two podcast guests, and a recent article by Bloomberg News, seem to indicate that most of the firms that have historically participated in the submissions process will continue to do so.

But many firms seem to be engaging more strategically, including by taking a critical look at the rankings and recognitions universe (according to the Bloomberg article, there are an estimated 1,000 rankings sites in the U.S.), winnowing down the ones they chose to submit for, and optimizing the resources they dedicate to their awards and recognitions programs. 

Research-based rankings require firms to provide a written submission with information on the firm that includes the practices and lawyers, client lists, and work matters (20 in total) as well as a list of clients and professional contacts who are willing to act as references, to speak to the work of the firm, its lawyers and the market as a whole. Of course, the primary objective in putting together these submissions is securing market recognition for your firm, its practices and its lawyers. But the benefits of that hard work (and money) go well beyond a spot in the rankings tables if you (and your lawyers) can view the submission process as both an intelligence gathering and a visibility and engagement opportunity. 

For marketing and business development professionals, the annual process of developing the submissions packets can be an exercise in gathering and synthesizing critical information that can be used well beyond the submissions. The representative work matter descriptions and client lists can be used to update the databases and materials from which pitches and responses to RFPs are developed. The process of working with lawyers on the submissions not only provides an excellent engagement and visibility opportunity for the marketing and BD functions but also can spark discussions about practice and industry trends and market opportunities and facilitate broader business development planning. Crafting the written submissions packet can also highlight places where marketing content—lawyer bios, experience lists, and practice and industry descriptions—may not have kept up with the work the lawyers and practices have been engaged in.

For busy lawyers (and those tend to be the ones nominated in rankings submissions), identifying their key clients and notable representations can be a time-consuming process. But taking the time to reflect on the previous year’s work can yield information that can be used beyond the submissions—for identifying practice shifts and business development opportunities, updating the lawyer’s bio and experience lists, and preparing for leadership and compensation committee decisions, among others.

Selecting the right references is key to being recognized by research-based rankings programs—and it’s also an excellent opportunity for lawyers to engage with clients and referral sources. Reaching out to ask for a reference affords lawyers extra non-matter-related touchpoints that can help them stay visible and top of mind with clients. In fact, it’s not unusual for lawyers to come away with new work as a result of calls to ask for a reference. Less formal than a client survey or interview, reference outreach is also a lower-stakes opportunity to ask client service questions and gauge client satisfaction. 

Rankings organizations also prefer that references be individuals who can speak not only to the work of the specific lawyer or firm but also to other firms and the market as a whole. Gauging the comfort and ability of a client or referral source to speak to topics beyond the individual lawyer or firm can also yield market intelligence on competitors, trends and potential opportunities.

Leveraging the information-gathering and outreach processes for other purposes is one way to optimize the effort and cost of the submissions season. In a future post, we’ll talk about how to maximize your rankings and recognitions results—without participating in pay-to-play programs.

Featured Articles

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Why ‘sales’ shouldn’t be taboo in legal services
Why ‘sales’ shouldn’t be taboo in legal services

I’m a swear-word enthusiast. I actually have that in my LinkedIn profile headline.

To know me is to know my creative use of the F-word — noun, verb, adjective, adverb, expletive.

I love a good unmentionable word. 

And I’ve noticed a taboo term popping up lately in legal service marketing — the “S-word”…

Sales.

There, I said it.

The idea that lawyers and firms don’t — or shouldn’t — “sell” to clients and prospects remains widespread.

I think it’s time we change this perspective. It’s neither practical nor sustainable in a legal services marketplace, where competition to keep clients and attract new ones is intense and the ability to stand out from the crowd is increasingly challenging for both lawyers and firms.

It’s also not what clients want or what serves them best in the long run.

Leveraging Rankings and Awards for Visibility
Leveraging Rankings and Awards for Visibility

In a recent blog post, we talked about how to make the most of the annual process of gathering the matters and references needed for submissions to research-based legal awards and directories. (You can read our blog post here: https://www.create-cmm.com/blog/making-the-most-of-rankings-and-awards.)

In this blog post, we’re giving you tips for getting the most visibility out of your recognitions, whether that’s one or many this awards season.

To truly get the most visibility out of rankings, recognitions and awards, you need to do some planning before the first submission packet is ever uploaded.

Learning the Lingo: How Industry Jargon Can Enhance or Hurt Marketing Content
Learning the Lingo: How Industry Jargon Can Enhance or Hurt Marketing Content

Every time a marketing content writer takes on a client in a new industry, we’re faced with learning at least one new set of business jargon— the client’s jargon — and often the industry-speak of the client’s clients as well.

The question is: How much jargon should we use in the content we create for our clients?

On the one hand, our job as marketing content writers is to help our clients show that they speak their clients’ language. On the other hand, peppering copy with too many industry-specific terms can alienate even the intended audience, not to mention the broader audience.

Jargon refers to terms and expressions used within a profession or industry that may be difficult for those outside the industry to understand. It often takes the form of shorthand for more complex processes. Often, jargon isn’t too difficult to figure out. For example, “capability uplift” is a human resource term that means investment in training and development to help employees build skills and knowledge. In the website development world, the term “breadcrumbs” is short for a site’s secondary navigation system that shows users the location of a webpage in relation to the rest of the site.

Meg Pritchard, Principal and Founder

I’m Meg—a lawyer, writer and editor, and marketing professional who understands the content marketing challenges facing law firms in today’s competitive—and cluttered—marketplace. I founded Create Communications in 2011 to serve as an outsourced resource for law firms that want to harness the power of branded content and thought leadership in their marketing and business development. When you work with us, you get a hand-picked team of kick-ass writers and editors with legal, journalism, business and marketing experience who believe that exceptional content can be the rocket fuel that powers business growth. We’re committed to defying your expectations, every time.

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