Nominations & Listings - LOVE EM, or not ...

Legal listings have become annual fixtures in law firm marketing calendars and represent a great opportunity to publicize people and practice areas within your firm. Making it on to them, however, is not as simple as it sounds. Legal listings can greatly increase the reputation of a particular lawyer, practice area or law firm.
The hackneyed “clients don’t read directories” argument is both somewhat naïve and – increasingly – untrue. For example, it is increasingly commonplace for clients to ask law firms to list their directory rankings in RFPs. Rankings aren’t the deciding factor; but they are increasingly a deciding factor.
The directories market is relatively mature, but the editors continue to report a mismatch between what researchers want to receive versus what firms think researchers want to receive.
Identifying a firm’s exemplary candidates is the easy part. Stellar pitches to distinguish one’s outstanding candidates from another’s, however, require much more thought and understand how the directory research processes work is a huge advantage.

Tips for getting on the lists
• Editors review hundreds, sometimes thousands, of nominations for the lists. They need you to point out why this candidate above all others should be included
• Be as specific as possible. Include case names, client names, amounts of deals, settlements or awards, and pertinent dates. If it is a defense win, be sure to include the implications if your client had lost the case;
• Editors want to know how the recent matter is relevant to the legal and business communities. Be sure to include any media coverage.
• Back up your claims with quantitative facts. If you are saying someone donates a lot of pro-bono time, how many hours and to which programs did they donate time to last year? Include the national average of pro-bono contributions;
• Leadership roles in the firm or community can be highlighted, but no more than a couple of sentences should be allocated to this and back them up with quantitative data. Explain the results and benefits so far;
• Know your deadlines. Missed deadlines are the most common source of directory aggravation. Start each submission 6 weeks before the deadline.
• Focus is essential: don’t throw everything at the researcher “just in case it might help”. It won’t. Tell them what they want to know, and nothing more.
• Client references are arguably as important as the submission.
• Put works into context - researchers are inexperienced; a long list of one-line deal descriptions with no context won't have much impact. How to make sure your submission tells a story.

Times have changed. The rise of sophisticated, qualitative research-based guides over the past decade has redefined the term ‘legal directory’, and the market leaders – Chambers and Legal 500 – have become annual fixtures in law firm marketing calendars. Gaining recognition for your practices and attorneys has become a central part of a legal marketer’s responsibilities. As the main directories’ cachet increases and more firms strive to achieve the rankings they feel they deserve, the bar for entry is set ever higher.

A timely application with as much relevant information as possible is a sure-fire way to get your lawyers noticed. If a nomination includes a clear, big-picture perspective on your candidate’s work, ‘Congratulations, you are on,’ will replace the commiseration message at the beginning of this article.

The questions, however, remain: is all the effort worth it? Do clients read directories? Can’t we just make it all stop?