February’s client satisfaction report from Legal 500 and Legal Business put the cat among the legal directories pigeons. Drawing on the views of almost 80,000 law firm clients it revealed the LB100 firms that are most highly recommended by those using them. All of a sudden law firms across the UK were questioning the data and, importantly, why it might deviate from that collated by their own client listening programmes.
Legal 500’s Net Promoter Score® (NPS®) data is considered to be the most comprehensive, statistically validated client satisfaction benchmark in the global legal sector. It uses the directory submissions process to provide an independently collected dataset on how law firm clients really feel. And with over 15 million client survey data points, it’s the only law firm NPS® system of its kind. And it’s worth taking seriously.
But if firms are selecting their referees carefully, why isn’t everyone scoring 100%? And what can this data tell us about the way firms manage and engage referees? If your firm already runs a client listening programme, this is your chance to go deeper. And if you’re still treating referee collation as a last-minute admin job, it might be time to rethink your approach altogether.
A brief refresher: what’s actually being measured?
You can be forgiven if this whole area has passed you by. It hasn’t been terribly well promoted, or highlighted as the valuable information it really is. In fact, for many, the first we heard of it was the UK report being published in February.
So, let’s go back to the beginning. As part of the directory submissions process Legal 500 asks referees to assess firms on a wide range of service criteria, including:
- Appropriate resourcing
- Billing transparency and value for money
- Communications and case management
- Industry knowledge
- Partner and associate quality
- Efficiency and consistency
Referees are provided by the firms and, in questioning them, it gives the researcher information to (hopefully) support the submission document.
Now, these referees are also asked to respond to a Net Promoter Score® question:
“How likely is it that you would recommend this firm to a friend or colleague?”
Responses are rated on a 0–10 scale and categorised as:
- Promoters (9–10)
- Passives (7–8)
- Detractors (0–6)
The final Legal 500 NPS score is calculated by subtracting the percentage of Detractors from the percentage of Promoters. Importantly, non-respondents are excluded from the calculation. They don’t skew the data, but they don’t soften it either.
This is analysed across jurisdictions, sectors and practice areas, and compared directly against the scores of other firms. The result? An objective, evidence-based view of relative client satisfaction across the global legal market.
So if you’re hand-picking referees, why isn’t everyone scoring 100%?
You might expect this group of carefully selected contacts who’ve agreed to speak on your behalf to come back with glowing reviews across the board. But the data suggests otherwise.
As Legal 500’s Ben Wheway explains, the reality is more mixed. “The quality control you might expect isn’t always enforced,” he notes. “Referees can change their minds. And we see a surprising number of responses that are not just lukewarm, but actively negative.”
At ELE, across our many years of experience delivering legal directory submissions we’ve seen it all, from firms pulling the lists of referees together at the last minute through to them not bothering at all. In others, decisions are driven by profile rather than the strength of the underlying relationship. Either way, it appears from this latest data that what looks strong on paper doesn’t always hold up under scrutiny or over time.
This, in itself, is useful. Rather than treating the referee list as a compliance exercise, this data gives firms a real opportunity to interrogate the relationships behind it.
Comparing the scores: why your internal NPS may be telling a different story
One issue raised by firms in response to the report is that Legal 500’s NPS scores are sometimes significantly lower than those collected through their own client listening programmes.
Again, Ben Wheway has a view on this. “Think of it like this: if my barber asked me directly for feedback, I’d probably be generous. If someone else asked me to rate my haircut, I might be more honest.”
Third-party collection strips away the personal bias. It also removes any perceived pressure from the relationship. What’s more, Legal 500’s methodology ensures that the sample size is large enough — and consistent enough — to provide meaningful comparisons across firms, practices and jurisdictions.
So if the numbers don’t match, it may be worth digging into why.
A wake-up call for referee strategy
What this report does — perhaps more clearly than any before — is show that your referee list isn’t just a supporting document. It’s a window into the health of your client relationships.
If your scores are lower than expected, it’s not about blaming the directories. It’s about looking at the full picture: the quality of your client relationships, the consistency of service, the transparency of pricing, and the availability of your senior lawyers. And, just perhaps, it’s about reconsidering the strategy you have (or haven’t) for selecting, managing and supporting referees throughout the directories process.
As we’ve said before at ELE: referee management isn’t about admin. It’s about client care.
Connecting the dots: from directories to client listening
For global firms, there’s a bigger opportunity here, and it’s one we see the most sophisticated marketing and BD teams starting to seize.
Rather than cobbling together referee lists at the eleventh hour, these firms are integrating referee strategy into their wider client listening infrastructure. Some are tagging referees in their CRM systems, tracking feedback throughout the year and across different methods, and including referees in their own Net Promoter and Voice of the Client programmes.
Handled well, this turns the directories process into a valuable extension of the firm’s insight-gathering toolkit, enabling proactive, year-round engagement with the people who matter most.
It certainly appears that Legal 500’s NPS report might well provide the missing piece: a large-scale, independently validated dataset that allows firms to sense-check their internal results and get a clearer view of how they’re really perceived.
What should firms do now?
If you’re reviewing your referee process in light of the report, here are five questions to ask:
- Are you selecting referees based on relationship strength, or profile?
- Is your list refreshed regularly, or recycled year on year?
- Are your internal scores significantly higher than the Legal 500 NPS? If so, why? Have you tried to find out?
- Can you link directory engagement to your client listening or CRM programmes?
- Do you treat referee feedback as data, not just narrative?
Final thoughts: A strategic asset, not a submission deadline
Client feedback isn’t just about good PR or legal rankings. It’s an increasingly quantitative, strategic asset.
Legal 500’s NPS® data gives law firms a rare opportunity to move from anecdote to evidence. It allows marketing and BD leaders to bring clarity to conversations that have too often been driven by instinct, hierarchy or haste.
It’s time to stop seeing referee management as a quick box tick. And start seeing it as a mirror you ought to be looking into throughout the year.
If you’ve found this article interesting you might find this one, on managing the referee relationship worth reading: If you’ve found this article interesting you might find this one, on managing the referee relationship worth reading: https://www.ele.rocks/blog/who-you-name-matters-how-to-choose-and-manage-referees-for-legal-directory-success
And, if anything in this is something you’d like to work on, please contact us to discuss your directory submissions and referee management.
