Top tips for SME law firms during legal directories season

Former solicitor Victoria Moffatt, now managing director at LexRex Communications, on what law firms across the UK should do to create effective legal directories submissions.

We’re now entering what’s commonly known as ‘legal directories season’ for many of the UK’s law firms. Autumn sees the launch of the Legal 500 and Chambers and Partners Guides, followed shortly by the release of deadlines for this year’s submissions (although at the time of writing both have still to publish their research schedule and deadlines).

One thing that always interests me with directories submissions is the wide range of different approaches firms take. Some ask fee earners to draft their submissions, sometimes supervised by an individual with responsibility for getting them over the line. Others leave it to business development and marketing teams – and others outsource the process entirely. However you do it in your firm, the following considerations may help to make the process less onerous and/or improve your prospects of success:

1. Assess yourself by reference to the competition. Look at the current listings for your focus areas. Are you realistically working at the same level as the other firms? If not, don’t waste your time – focus your marketing budget and time on other areas.

2. Plan your time and budget. Sit down with your chosen directories team and work out how much time and/or budget you’ll need for each submission and overall. We estimate between two and four days per submission.

It’s worthwhile noting that a completed submission can usually be used across Chambers and Legal 500 with minimal changes where the category for each has the same criteria/geographical application.

If you ask fee earners to complete submissions, remember to factor in the cost of lost fees. For example, by using a fee earner at £200 per hour assuming a 7.5-hour billing day – each submission costs between £3000 and £6000 in lost fees.

If you’re a fee earner, consider how the above time commitment fits in with your targets. If you are a head of department or partner, use the above to work out the cost per department and overall in lost billing and consider whether it makes more sense to outsource or prune the number of submissions you complete.

3. Look realistically at your case studies. Are they strong enough? Will your clients provide decent feedback on your/your team’s work? Remember that you can include up to 20 case studies, but you won’t be marked down if you don’t. Better to prune your case studies to those that most effectively showcase the work being done than to try and stuff your submission.

4. Audit your referee spreadsheet. Are the people listed appropriate? Are they happy to be contacted? Will they engage with the process? Have you worked with them or spoken to them recently? Most importantly – do you have their up-to-date contact details?

5. Create your submission for lay people not lawyers. The researchers are typically not lawyers, and even if they have been through law school (many of them have), they won’t necessarily have a granular knowledge of your specialism. Write for them, not your fellow lawyers.

Finally, best of luck with your submissions this year. For more detailed and regular information and advice on the legal directories process, you can sign up to our Directories Bulletin newsletter here.