Pouring countless hours into your firm’s submissions with no resulting recognition can be an incredibly frustrating process, especially when you see your competitors being recognised.

In my experience, only a small percentage of unranked submitters will obtain a ranking though the majority of those excluded will, more often than not, be making critical, fundamental errors with their submissions. As such, an exclusion from a legal directory is just as likely to be indicative of an error in the firm's submission process as it is likely to be reflective of the firm's actual market position.

Consequently, you can ensure that you leapfrog the vast majority of your peers by avoiding these all-too-common mistakes:

Not Providing Enough Detail

Legal directories are not rocket science, they are predominantly based on the information that firms provide in their submissions. If your submission contains a brief firm introduction, vague lawyer bios, a small client list and generalised work highlights, you are almost guaranteed to be instantly dismissed.

Submitting in itself is not enough, you need to ensure that you put a good level of effort into the process. You cannot expect the researcher to recognise the strengths of your practice if these are not showcased within the document. You need to ensure that the quality of your practice is tangibly proven by the submission.

Needless to say, if a firm puts in a rushed and poor-quality submission, this is hardly going to come across as a ringing endorsement of your attention to detail or levels of service. Would you hire someone who sent over a half-baked CV and cover letter? Unlikely.

Please see my article on writing work highlights for an idea of what I would consider a sufficient level of detail.

Not Showcasing a Sufficient Number of Work Examples

This is a very common one. The threshold varies by jurisdiction, but I would advise that you should aim to showcase at least 12 matters in the work highlights section, and ideally the full 20. If your firm cannot put together a decent number of matters to showcase over a 12-month period, then it will signal that you are not particularly active within the relevant practice area.

They do not expect every single matter in the document to be outstanding. For example, if your firm has 8 property transactions valued at €1m+ and another 8 between €500k and £750,000, you may be tempted to leave out the latter matters. Do not do this! Even Tier 1 submissions showcase matters of varying quality. Your lesser matters help showcase the scope, activity and consistency of your offering and may actually be stronger than some of the weaker mandates provided by other firms.

The Nature of Your Work

A key criterion for the directories is the ‘scope of work’, i.e. how many different industries are you active in and what’s the range of matters handled. For example, a Corporate/Commercial practice handling public M&A, private M&A, PE deals and JVs across all industries is more likely to be recognised than a firm with a more niche focus on tech-related contracts. You can certainly still be ranked with a more specialised offering though you are likely to be confined to the lower tiers and may be dismissed entirely depending on the table.

Firms should be wary of submitting too many similar-sounding matters and do their utmost to showcase a varied range of expertise. If you’ve sent over 15 matters of a similar nature, you should include 5 more matters which showcase greater variety, even if these are not quite of the same standard as other instructions in the submission.

You should also ensure that the work you are submitting is relevant for the practice area. For example, you will not get ranked for a Disputes submission full of property litigation as this will be covered by the Real Estate table. Both Chambers and Legal 500 provide thorough practice area definitions which will inform you on exactly the kind of work they consider relevant.

Lack of Referee Feedback

Firms receiving little to no feedback is probably more common than you would think. Bear in mind, many of your clients have never heard of Legal 500 or Chambers and may ignore their reach out emails.

While referees may ignore the directories, they are not going to ignore you! While I was at Legal 500, I would advise firms to be proactive with their referees i.e. give them a heads up before the emails are sent and give them a polite nudge or two during the research period to respond. In my experience, this would garner 3 or 4x the response rate over less proactive firms.

Lack of Peer Endorsements

Researchers will often ask currently ranked firms what they think of the new submitters, and it will naturally work against you if they haven’t heard of you, or don’t have anything good to say.

While there’s not much you can do to control this, I would say it can be partially offset by including referees who are lawyers/barristers. Try and go for names who are from ranked firms, even if they are recognised for a different jurisdiction/practice area. This will help create the impression that you are respected by your peers. You can also showcase industry esteem by reference to any thought leadership your firm is involved in i.e. articles, conferences, publications, media appearances, external awards etc.

Giving Up Too Quickly

It is often a two-year process to obtain a ranking or promotion. As such, firms who do not receive instant recognition should not be deterred.

You need to stick with it and be proactive in asking the directories for feedback on where your submission fell short.

Feel free to email me with any questions you may have in relation to this topic.