Written by Adina (Grossman) Cutler, Head of Submissions Department.
After years of working with the most sophisticated, international legal directories, we at Nishlis Legal Marketing are pleased to report that at long last we are witnessing some impactful changes that actually make a significant difference to law firms.
Gone are the days where changes were minor and limited to research form tweaks and small moves within ranking tables.
The Nishlis team is particularly pleased to see an expansion in practice areas and jurisdictions covered. It’s fantastic to see that Editors are incorporating and considering those countries that have now established their legal and business markets.
An item that was being considered for a while, which will please law firms, is the expansion of sub-category practice rankings.
Conversations have highlighted that directory researchers are also looking to deepen their understanding of firms participating in the research to understand their efforts in promoting EDI (Equality, Diversity and Inclusion). With that in mind, and we can hardly contain our joy, firms are now being asked to include female partners in the phone interviews. We welcome this as it’s in addition to the Diversity and Inclusion section which has featured on the research forms over the last couple of years. While it is true that the ration of men to women and the EDI section do not affect a firm’s rankings at all, it is still advised to include this information where possible, as this is the kind of information legal directory users are seeking when trying to make socially responsible decisions.
Finally, we were extremely pleased to see the efforts made by researchers to obtain feedback on younger Partners and Senior Associates. This is reflected in the specialized individual ranking tables within the various research templates and the resulting increase in individual ranking categories.
