Legal Directories: How to Put Together Work Highlights
Here’s a handy guide for putting together a great selection of work highlights for your legal directory submissions.
Start gathering matters early!
When deciding to submit for an area, you should aim to put together 15 to 20 matters from the last 12-18 months to support your case.
Putting any less will make the submission look weak and any more will dilute your overall message and give you an unnecessary work load.
To achieve this, alert the relevant practice head to start compiling these matters 2-3 months before the deadline.
Which Deals to pick?
It goes without saying that you need to pick your best deals or cases. But which deals should you pick?
Relevance is important. Make sure the deal is directly relevant to the practice area under review. The directories provide practice area definitions which you should use as a guide.
Focus on variety, making sure to hit the ranking criteria. Make sure you present a wide variety of matters across the practice area definition to demonstrate a wide range of expertise. Matters should also be led by a variety of partners on the team to demonstrate strength in depth.
Don’t just focus on big value deals, also pick complex, sophisticated or matters that have received a lot of press attention.
If you’ve worked for big name clients or opposite/with big name firms, include the deal.
What information to include?
Fill out every field in the matter highlight form! It goes without saying that the matter overview and matter value is important, but so are the other fields. Consider:
If it was a cross-border matter, mention the other jurisdictions involved. This is a simple way to earn extra credit with the researcher.
Mention the lawyers who worked on a matter – but be clear about their role and make sure they have a bio in the submission.
It might be tempting to leave out the other firms that worked on the matter but don’t! Other firms are a simple way for researchers to benchmark the firm in the local and international market.
Date of completion – some firms provide severely out of date work. Don’t do it!
Press coverage – if your matter has received media attention, then shout about it. This is less effective if limited to industry publications but if your matter was in a mainstream newspaper, then it definitely counts in your favour.
How to format a good matter overview
Be concise! Leave out narrative descriptions and marketing speak.
The overview needs to be easy to skim read and understand. Use bullet points to simplify complex legal concepts.
Don’t just copy and paste the matter description from your internal files.
Use the formula: Matter scope – What the firm did – Why the matter was interesting/challenging or important
What else to consider?
Other things to consider are order and confidentiality.
Think about which order the matters are presented. Put the most important matters, with widely recognisable client names, first.
Whether a matter is confidential or not does not count against the firm. This is particularly true for sensitive areas such as dispute resolution. Just make sure you present 20 matters in total.