Why genuinely strong work still misses the ranking.
On the basis that most researchers have several hundred submissions to work through, it stands to reason that they’re likely to have your submission open for just a few moments before a first impression on ranking is formed.
The submissions that don’t get the desired results usually fail that initial read in the same few ways. They’re too vague to be of any use. They’re so long the point gets buried. The matters are dense, overly technical word salad, when what a researcher needs is plain: what you did, who for, and why it mattered. Or they claim a position the firm’s own website doesn’t back up. On the page these read like style problems but commercially, they’re the difference between a band held and a band lost.
Researchers move past anything that doesn’t show relevance and credibility straight away. A matter that doesn’t make its significance obvious at a glance gets missed, because researchers wading through hundreds of them don’t have time to go looking for it. A referee who spends the call praising the wrong practice area hands the researcher a warm reference for a ranking you’re not even chasing. On their own, these look like small snags. But their cost shows up a season later, when the band slips and the ranking goes to the lawyer whose submission made the case yours didn’t.
So what does a submission a researcher can work with look like? We’ve read these from the other side, as former directories researchers and editors, and as in-house directories managers, so we know how a submission is judged, not just how it’s written. Across our clients, three things separate the entries that move from the ones that stall.
Clear and focused on what researchers assess
“Advised on a range of complex, high-value matters across multiple jurisdictions” gives a researcher nothing. It could describe almost any team in the category, which is exactly the problem.
A matter that works is clear, to the point, and built around the things a researcher is actually weighing: what made the work hard, why it mattered in the market, your role in it, and what was at stake for the client. Name the deal and the value. Name the point that had never been tested before, and the outcome the client couldn’t afford to lose. Say it plainly, and say it early.
A researcher isn’t rewarding effort. They’re looking for evidence, and a matter that hands it over quickly beats one that makes them dig for it. We regularly see genuinely strong work lose out because it was written so generally, or so densely, that none of what mattered came through.
Consistent with what the market can already see
A researcher won’t take your submission at its word. They’ll look you up, reading the website, the deals you’ve publicised, the sector pages, checking whether the claim survives contact with your own public presence.
Say your submission calls you a market leader in energy transition. If that’s genuinely your lead practice, the site will show it and the claim holds. If energy transition is buried nine practice areas down and your most recent case study is three years old, the claim starts to wobble, however good the matter summaries are. Category positioning behaves the same way. Put yourself in a band your public profile can’t support and even excellent matters won’t rescue it. Where you submit has to line up with how you already show the work.
Backed by referees who tell the same story
Referees aren’t a side task to sort out at the end. They’re the rest of your evidence.
The submissions that do well tend to have referees backing the same two or three strengths the entry leads on, rather than a long list where everyone praises something different and none of it adds up to much. Pick a credible, balanced set, brief them properly, get them responding on time, and the researcher hears the same story from a source that isn’t you. When the submission, the public positioning and the referees all say the same thing, that agreement is what a researcher is really weighing.
Strong submissions are decided, not filled in
The real work happens before any writing. It’s deciding what the submission has to prove, then cutting whatever doesn’t. Firms that rank consistently do that months ahead, while there’s still time to choose. That early cutting shows in the result. The strongest submissions we see are lean, every matter there because it proves something.
If your rankings have held flat for two cycles while the work has only got stronger, the work is rarely the problem. Our Legal Directory Ranking Strategy looks at case selection, referee strategy and positioning before your next window opens, so the next submission gives researchers what they need on the first read. But if you’d like to discuss where you might be getting stuck, just get in touch.
