Guest article: Matt Baldwin, Coast Communications
It’s been a spicy few weeks for the Legal 500.
A strike that saw researchers picket its Fleet Street offices was followed a few days later with frank, and downright weird, client feedback being published online.
It was a story broken by Roll on Friday and relished by the Mail and The Times, pointing to one barrister as being ‘sloppy’, another being ‘disorganised and indecisive’, and one client describing a barrister as ‘nothing of note’. And let’s not even mention the fish!
Legal 500 quickly went offline due to ‘maintenance’, with its chief exec having to hurriedly issue apologies.
And it’s not just the legal directories in the spotlight.
Shortly afterwards, the US giant Kirkland & Ellis told the American Lawyer magazine that it will no longer provide financial data for its own rankings. It was a story picked up by the Financial Times.
The two rankings are quite clearly different but do raise the question ‘Do clients care where and how a firm is ranked?’.
The legal industry, almost uniquely, seems to think they do.
Now, let me declare an interest. Our very first client when we opened our doors almost 25 years ago was the Legal 500 directory and its sister magazine Legal Business. We helped Legalease build a media programme for over a decade that saw newspapers and magazines across the country carry supplements (sometimes up to 40 pages long) based on Legal 500 research.
There was a time when Legal 500 (and Chambers) played a useful role in helping clients differentiate one firm from another. Although rarely could any firm point to revenue directly attributed to the directories (and yes, we know the client journey is messy).
Now we are not so sure. They certainly have little, if any, PR value.
The main arguments for the directories seem to be that they provide some independent benchmark against peers based on client feedback and that now AI engines find value in them. Whilst helpful, neither adequately justify the ‘investment’ firms make. The biggest reason for their continued existence seems to be ‘we’ve always done it’. That and partner pressure.
The experience from marketing and business development leaders suggests little value and plenty of frustration. Time and cost are among the biggest issues, followed by questionable ranking decisions. Why give the directories your firm’s data only to then buy it back of them? It is a theme we covered this time last year in an article in the PM Forum’s magazine PM.
For every problem the directories claim to resolve, there are equal or better options open to firms. Client listening, structured PR programmes, digital campaigns, improving the client experience all carry clearer benefit. It is perhaps why this model has failed to translate to accountancy firms, to surveyors, architects, PR firms even. Here, rankings are based solely on turnover and meaningless.
This year’s spicy directory season is unlikely see firms pull out from the process, but will undoubtedly see them once again question their value, and indeed the value of rankings more widely. At the very least, they should question why they ask their most valued asset, clients, to get involved. There is little obvious benefit for them.
Because with budgets tight, limited marketing resource and with pressure on fee-earning teams, the question must surely start with ‘why bother’. What problem do the directories and rankings solve?
It’s a question the legal sector has struggled with for over 30 years. Perhaps now the answer is becoming a little clearer.
Matt Baldwin is the joint managing director of Coast, a media relations agency.