We read a lot of directory submissions here at ELE. And, as a rule (and very much like a researcher) we almost always open the firm’s website straight after scanning through the first draft.
Nine times out of ten, the two don’t quite match.
Your Chambers or Legal 500 submission is not going to be read in isolation. A researcher who likes what they see in your matter summaries will almost always go on to take a look at your website – whether profiles, news articles, or service pages.
They’re looking to see whether what you’ve asserted in your submission is backed up by evidence on your website (as well as wider searches – and potentially even LLM prompts).
The challenge is that when most firms are working on their website they’re really not thinking about directories at all.
Often a website project is run by a different team, on a different timeline, with different priorities and KPIs, and it’s updated whenever there is budget or a rebrand on the calendar. The submission, however, is drafted against a fixed deadline and updated every year. So a site that was last touched in the spring is unlikely to marry up to a submission created the following winter.
Maybe it’s because we work on both submissions and websites here at ELE, but we think this gap is pretty important. As we’ve written before, a submission is one voice among several a researcher will consider: referees, peers, published commentary, and your own website.
If your submission argues that a team leads on complex cross-border disputes and the practice page hasn’t been touched since before half that team joined, the researcher is going to notice. And while this might not entirely derail the process, it is going to sew a seed of doubt that they’ll want to test further. Not because they’re looking for reasons to mark you down, but because checking the story against what’s publicly available is exactly what the job involves.
The solution is to join up your website and submissions
The fix isn’t a website overhaul every time a submission goes in. It’s treating the two as one piece of work rather than two. Before you draft next year’s submission, read your own practice pages and associated biographies the way a researcher would. Does this back up what you’re about to argue, or contradict it? If a practice page has gone stale, a rewrite built around the same story your submission might be worth considering. If your team list shows ten lawyers but your submission argues twenty, do something about it. If you’re singling out expertise in a particular sector or area of law, make sure it’s mentioned in the ‘what we do’ section. Perhaps even include some case studies. And if you log deals and publishable matters on your website, make sure the handful you’ve highlighted in your submission are actually up there.
But isn’t this a lot of work just for directory submissions?
Not if you think about it the other way round. This isn’t about doing work for the sake of a stronger submission. That’s a nice byproduct. The real opportunity is treating your directories process as a data collection exercise. Every year, partners hand over their best matters, agree on positioning, and settle on language that’s actually been tested against the market and your competitors. Once that work exists, it seems wasteful to let it sit in a submission portal doing nothing else. Pull it through to your website and you get fuller practice pages, more engaging bios, and case studies that are already fact-checked and approved for external use. Use it in your next pitch or bid and you’re working from evidence, not the same three adjectives every BD reaches for when up against a deadline on a Friday evening. The submission was never really the end point. It’s some of the best material most firms generate all year. The only question is whether you consider the process a line or a full circle.
If your last submission told a stronger story than your website currently does, why not let us take a look. Get in touch and we’ll see what we can do to help.
