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U.S. News
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Schedule
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FAQ
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U.S. News Media Group, the nation's leading source of rankings and service journalism,
and Best Lawyers, the leading survey of lawyers worldwide, are expanding the U.S.
News signature "America's Best" series to include rankings of law firms.
The U.S. News/Best Lawyers Law Firm rankings will evaluate more than 3,000 law firms
across the United States using a wide range of objective data as well as individual
assessments from more than 100,000 private practice lawyers, 80,000 clients, and
thousands of law firm employees. The results of this evaluation, as well as articles
about legal careers and the law, will be featured in a variety of print and online
products focused on both consumers and legal professionals.
"U.S. News has more than two decades of experience in providing the public with
the most accurate and in-depth rankings of a wide range of institutions, including
our America’s Best Law Schools rankings," says Tim Smart, Executive Editor of U.S.
News & World Report. "This experience, coupled with our growing reputation as a
leading career information resource, makes these law firm rankings a logical next
step.”
The law firm rankings will be featured on
USNews.com. The site already hosts the Best Lawyers’ search engine, which
contains profiles of 51,315 individual lawyers worldwide, covering 79 legal specialties
and based on more than 4.2 million evaluations of leading lawyers by their peers
at the top of the legal profession.
“U.S. News is the world’s leading publisher of institutional rankings based on both
objective data and peer evaluations,” says Steven Naifeh, President of Best Lawyers.
“We are combining this expertise with Best Lawyers’ experience of providing rankings
of individual lawyers based on peer reviews for more than a quarter of a century.
By combining hard data with peer reviews, and client assessments, we look forward
to providing users with the most thorough, accurate, and helpful rankings of law
firms, both as providers of legal services and as places to work.”
The U.S. News Media Group is a multi-platform
digital publisher of news and analysis, which includes the monthly U.S. News & World
Report magazine, the digital-only U.S. News Weekly magazine, www.usnews.com, and www.rankingsandreviews.com. Focusing on Health, Money
& Business, Education, and Public Service/Opinion, the U.S. News Media Group has
earned a reputation as the leading provider of service news and information that
improves the quality of life of its readers. The U.S. News Media Group’s signature
franchises include its News You Can Use® brand of journalism and its “America’s
Best” series of consumer guides that include rankings of colleges, graduate schools,
hospitals, health plans, and more.
Best Lawyers is the oldest and most respected peer-review
publication in the legal profession. For a quarter century, the company has helped
lawyers and clients find legal counsel in distant jurisdictions or unfamiliar specialties.
The 2010 edition of The Best Lawyers in America includes 39,709 lawyers covering
all 50 states and the District of Columbia and is based on more than 2.8 million
detailed evaluations of lawyers by other lawyers. At www.BestLawyers.com, Best Lawyers
also publishes peer-reviewed listings of lawyers in most of the world’s major legal
markets. Best Lawyers lists are excerpted in a wide range of general interest, business
and legal publications worldwide, reaching an audience of more than 17 million readers.
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| BEST LAW FIRMS
Marketing Officers:
• January 31, 2010: Deadline for law firms to submit client references
• February 22, 2010: Marketing officer surveys emailed
• April 9, 2010: Due date for marketing officer surveys
Clients:
• February 22, 2010 - February 26, 2010: Client surveys emailed
• April 9, 2010: Due date for client surveys
Lawyers:
• February 19, 2010: Additional round of lawyer surveys emailed
• April 9, 2010: Due date for all lawyer surveys
BEST LAW FIRMS TO WORK FOR
Recruiting Officers:
• March 1, 2010: Recruiting officer surveys emailed
• March 12, 2010: Deadline for law firms to submit associate and summer associate names
• April 9, 2010: Due date for all recruiting surveys
Associates/Summer Associates:
• March 15, 2010: Associate and summer associate surveys emailed
• April 9, 2010: Due date for all associate and summer associate surveys
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No. Best Lawyers listings will continue to be compiled according to an annual peer-review survey. There is only one change to our traditional methodology: If you submit the name of an individual lawyer who is not currently listed in Best Lawyers for the U.S. News – Best Lawyers survey, that lawyer will automatically be nominated for the next Best Lawyers poll. |
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Yes. One of the criteria for the “Best Law Firms” rankings is the number of listed lawyers in Best Lawyers. |
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More than 5,000 law firms will be ranked across the United States in 125 practice areas nationally, by state, and by metropolitan area. Overall national, state, and metropolitan area rankings for law firms with a general corporate practice will be aggregated from rankings in individual practice areas. |
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Lawyers, clients, marketing officers, recruiting officers, associates, and summer associates will all be surveyed. In firms without marketing or recruiting officers, lawyers will be asked to provide the information asked of marketing and recruiting officers. |
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The top-level information, including the highest ranking firms by practice area nationwide and the highest ranking firms in each state, will appear in U.S. News & World Report, which has 1.3 million subscribers and approximately 10 million readers. The rankings are tentatively scheduled for release in the magazine's October 2010 issue.
The full set of “Best Law Firms” rankings will appear in a stand-alone publication that will be sent to 20,000 general counsel across the United States. This stand-alone publication is also tentatively scheduled for release in October 2010.
The “Best Law Firms to Work For” rankings will appear in a stand-alone publication to be sent to 20,000 law school students across the United States. This stand-alone publication is tentatively scheduled for release in January 2011.
All of the rankings and accompanying data will be posted on USNews.com, which receives approximately three million unique visitors each month, in September 2010.
The Best Lawyers search engine already appears on USNews.com. |
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The clients whose names you submit will be asked to vote on practice areas and to comment on lawyers and practice areas. Their votes will remain completely confidential and their comments will be published with attribution only if the client specifically agrees to attribution. Attributed comments will be shown to you and the relevant lawyer before they are published. |
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By all means but please submit the names of lawyers in your firm who are well-recognized for their expertise. |
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You may enter as many lawyer/client/practice area combinations as you wish. If a client's name is given to us by multiple lawyers and/or in multiple practice areas, we will consolidate those practice areas into a single survey. In other words, we will not contact the client multiple times. We will send the client a single email asking him or her to click to a link to participate in the survey. He or she will then see each practice area and each lawyer listed serially on the same form. |
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The clients will be contacted by email. Their contact information will be used only to complete the client surveys and to send them free copies of the stand-alone U.S. News – Best Lawyers “Best Law Firms” publication. |
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No. In some practice areas, clients are typically individuals, not businesses. We are not asking for the names of individual clients simply because individual clients tend to have less experience with a wide range of lawyers than business clients do. For those practice areas that serve primarily individuals, the results of the lawyer survey will be more heavily weighted. |
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Yes. After you complete a survey instrument, you will be given an opportunity to review and edit the information you have provided. |
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Yes. Just send an email to Heather Davis at hdavis@bestlawyers.com requesting a copy of the practice areas included in the survey. |
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Clients will be asked to rate only those firms that they know well and only in those practice areas in which they know the firm's work. They will be asked about the firm's (or the lawyer's) legal expertise and skills, communications skills, promptness in anticipating problems and responding to inquires, budget awareness and cost effectiveness, and their understanding of the client's business and needs. Each client will also be asked to provide a brief comment about the lawyer who provided us with the client's name and his or her practice area.
Lawyers will be asked to rate only those firms that they know well and only in those practice areas in which they know the firm's work. They will be asked about the firm's legal expertise and skills, communications skills, and professional integrity and civility.
Each lawyer will also be asked for information on his or her subspecialty or subspecialties, legal expertise, schools, clerkships, professional affiliations, relevant government positions held, and other work experience. Lawyers will be asked to list 3 to 5 major cases/transactions on which they have worked. |
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The surveys for lawyers were sent out on November 17, 2009. The surveys for clients will be sent out February 8, 2010. Because some of the questions in the surveys for marketing officers, recruiting officers, associates, and summer associates will request information for the 2009 calendar year, those surveys will be sent out on February 8, 2010.
The surveys for lawyers need to be completed by January 29, 2010. The surveys for clients, marketing officers, recruiting officers, associates, and summer associates need to be completed by March 26, 2010. |
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Yes. The clients' comments on individual lawyers and the information from individual lawyers will be available on the Best Lawyers search engine, which appears on USNews.com and other major publication websites and which itself receives almost 36 million page views annually. A comment will be published on BestLawyers.com with the name and affiliation of the client only if the client specifically agrees to attribution. |
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The U.S. News – Best Lawyers “Best Law Firms” rankings will rank firms in every major metropolitan area in every state and in 125 practice areas. Such a comprehensive approach means that small firms that excel in particular practice areas or away from major population centers will be eligible to be ranked. |
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If you currently have less than 20 associates, please provide all of their names. If you have 20 or more associates, please provide at least 20 names, or 20 percent of the total number, whichever is greater. Apply the same rule to the associates you had in 2008, and summer associates in both 2008 and 2009. Of course, you are welcome to provide more names than this. If you have more than 100 associates and do not provide all their names, we ask that the associates whose names you provide represent a full range of tenures at your firm. |
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Yes. The names of all marketing officers, recruiting officers, lawyers, associates, and summer associates who complete surveys will be kept confidential. As stated above, the names of all clients will be kept confidential with regard to their rankings; clients' comments on individual lawyers or their practice areas will also be kept confidential unless they specifically agree to provide the comments for attribution. |
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