BEST LAWYERS IS THE BEST LAW FIRMS?
 |
| Lawyers = Law Firms? |
BEST LAWYERS IS THE BEST LAW FIRMS?
Methodology
The U.S.News
– Best Lawyers "Best Law Firms" rankings are based on a
rigorous evaluation process that includes the collection of client and lawyer
evaluations, peer review from leading attorneys in their field, and review of
additional information provided by law firms as part of the formal submission
process.
To be eligible for a ranking in a particular practice area and metro region,
a law firm must have at least one lawyer who is included in Best
Lawyers in that particular practice area and metro. For more
information on Best Lawyers, please visit bestlawyers.com.
For the
2017 "Best Law Firms" list, the methodology for the initiative
remained the same as in the previous six years.
Clients
were asked to provide feedback on firm practice groups, addressing expertise,
responsiveness, understanding of a business and its needs, cost-effectiveness,
civility, and whether they would refer another client to the firm.
Clients also
had the option to write in the names of law firms they’ve worked with on other
matters and within practice areas beyond those they were asked to comment on by
the submitting firm. Some clients chose to write a comment about their
experience with the law firm. These comments are for reference only and were
not used as data points in the formal evaluation process.
Lawyers
also voted on expertise, responsiveness, integrity, cost-effectiveness, whether
they would refer a matter to a firm, and whether they consider a firm a worthy
competitor. We asked this group to vote on law firms that have a preeminent
national presence within specified legal practice area(s) they know well.
For
the fourth year, a Law Firm Leaders Survey was implemented to provide personal
insight on the legal landscape surrounding the nationally ranked practice
areas. In addition to information from these surveys, the rankings incorporate
the 7.3 million evaluations of 54,463 individual leading lawyers collected by
Best Lawyers in its most recent annual survey.
In
addition to lawyer and client feedback, law firms were asked to provide us with
general demographic and background information on the law firm and attorneys,
and other data that speaks to the strengths of a law firm’s practice areas.
All of the
quantitative and qualitative data were combined into an overall "Best Law
Firms" score for each firm. This data was then compared to other firms
within the same metropolitan area and at the national level. Because firms were
often separated by small or insignificant differences in overall score, we use
a tiering system rather than ranking law firms sequentially.
The first tier in
each metropolitan area includes those firms that scored within a certain
percentage of the highest-scoring firm(s); the second tier, those firms that
scored within a certain percentage of the next highest scoring firm(s), and so
on.
The national rankings were based on metropolitan rankings as well as on the
number of offices each firm had with a metropolitan ranking and on the level of
legal activity in each metropolitan area. The number of tiers included in each
practice area or metropolitan area ranking varies, and some specialties may not
be ranked in metro areas in which there is not enough data to provide rankings
in a particular specialty.
Of the 13,803 firms that were eligible to submit
information for the ranking process, 13,044 firms, including a large number of
one-person firms, received rankings, and 8,144 of those firms received
first-tier national and/or metropolitan rankings.
Metro Areas
Metropolitan
areas are defined by assessing the population of eligible law firms
geographically to guarantee enough comparative data to produce accurate
results. There are eight states that had a high percentage of eligible law
firms located in one large metropolitan area.
Because there were also eligible
law firms outside of those metropolitan areas, but not enough to create
accurate results for separate metropolitan rankings, results were produced for
the entire state. The states that fall into this category are: Alaska,
Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Utah.
Practice Areas
Practice
area rankings were produced both nationally and within 186 metropolitan areas
across the United States. Because some practice areas have minimal presence in
particular legal markets, or because there was not enough data garnered for
proper evaluation, some practice areas that are covered in our research are not
represented in the national rankings or various metropolitan rankings. The 2017
"Best Law Firms" national rankings cover 74 practice areas, while as
many as 122 practice areas are covered on the metropolitan lists.
For the
sixth year, one law firm in each of 74 practice areas will receive the
prestigious 2017 "Law Firm of the Year" recognition. Law Firms
receiving the "Law Firm of the Year" designation have an impressive
overall performance in our research of a given practice area, representing a
significant showing in the 2017 U.S. News – Best Lawyers "Best
Law Firms" initiative.
---------------
Article Source:
Image Source :
Fantastic article.. Really enjoyed this article post. Cool.
ReplyDeleteمحامي عقاري الرياض