In a packed and competitive legal sector, credibility and reputation matter. So does standing out from the competition in a crowded marketplace.
You’ll know that appearing in the top legal directories, such as Chambers & Panthers and The Legal 500, can help you achieve this. Both are internationally recognised legal directories, providing comprehensive rankings and analysis of firms, chambers and individual lawyers, and serving as trusted resources for clients seeking legal services.
Gaining a ranking and recognition in either (or even better, both) is a fantastic way to boost your profile, whether your rankings focus on individual lawyers/barristers and practice areas, or are spread across the whole firm or chambers. Critically, by highlighting your expertise in this way, the directories can help to drive more clients through your doors.
However, something that many firms and chambers overlook is the opportunity to also provide submissions for the various individual, specialist guides within the directories – a ‘directories within directories’ system so to speak.
So what exactly do these specialist guides cover?
The guides differ from directory to directory. Chambers & Partners includes:
- The guides you’ll most likely have heard of – specific guides for UK solicitors and the UK Bar. Going further afield, separate guides cover Europe, the USA, Canada, Latin America, Brazil, and the Asian-Pacific and Greater China regions. There’s also a global guide.
- Specialist rankings focus on areas of expertise or achievement, covering High Net Worth, Crisis & Risk Management, FinTech, General Counsel Influencers and Litigation Support.
- Spotlight rankings are at present limited to the USA, this is a guide to the best small and medium-sized law firms. The 2024 edition has expanded significantly – we’ve covered this in more detail here.
- The new NewLaw guide merges the previously separate Chambers ALSP and Chambers LawTech guides to offer a new guide to legal technology and alternative legal service providers. We explain more about why this merge was a necessary move here.
The Legal 500 specialist guides differ somewhat:
- Again, there are specific guides for different global locations – Asia Pacific, Canada, The Caribbean, Europe, Middle East and Asia, Latin America, UK Solicitors and UK Bar, and the US.
- The General Counsel Powerlist is a dedicated guide which outlines the best counsel in over 40 different jurisdictions. Private Practice Powerlists highlight leading arbitrators.
- The Global Green Hub is dedicated to exploring the legal sector’s engagement with a green transition – from ESG and sustainability to climate action and net-zero.
- Country Comparative Guides offer a practical overview of laws and regulations in key jurisdictions, for specific practice areas. Each country chapter is written by a renowned firm in a straightforward format.
- Recently, the Legal 500 released a new resource for students with the Future Lawyers guide, which offers a host of resources for law students or those interested in pursuing a career in the legal space, and allows them to use Legal 500 rankings to compare firms or chambers.
Is a submission to one of these ‘other’ guides worth it?
If your firm or chambers fits the bill, then absolutely. Recognition in either directory is a significant achievement, and our opinion is it’s most certainly worthwhile submitting to either the general rankings, or any of the guides you meet the criteria for, regardless of the size of your chambers or firm. Providing submissions to both directories can help maximise your visibility and reputation.
I don’t have time for a general geography-based submission – let alone one to a specialist guide!
That’s where we can help. Here at ELE, helping firms and chambers like yours with directory submissions is a huge part of our work.
Between us we’ve been doing them for more than twenty years, so we’re not talking hot air when we say we’re experts when it comes to the directory submissions process. Why not get in touch for a chat to see how we could help?
We can be involved as little or as much as you would like. This means taking the whole problem away and managing it, or simply providing feedback on last year’s submissions and where you might be overlooking opportunities to be featured. Whatever our level of involvement we build a tailored team of experts, putting in place confidentiality and information barriers, as needed.
For more in depth reading about directory submissions, take a look at our directories hub. We’ve written several articles to help give you a better understanding of legal directories, including spotlight guides on both Chambers & Partners and The Legal 500.
