Legal Marketing & PR

Don't Fuss About The ACC's Value Index: Get With The Program

By Tom Kane

Paul Lippe of Legal OnRamp has an excellent piece in yesterday's The AmLaw Daily which supports what I wrote about last week on the subject (I love it when really smart people confirm one of my viewpoints – notice I only said 'one').

Paul points out that ratings will happen whether law firms like it or not, and, in fact, always have (albeit less formalized) in the form of word-of-mouth ratings. And, just because the ACC Value Index evaluations can be negative, and not just positive (like Martindale-Hubbell, Super Lawyers, Chambers, Best Lawyers in America, et al.) doesn't change a thing. If a rating system is an 'effective' rating system, such will 'provide clients and firms with information that helps them (both) do their job better,' according to Paul.

As I mentioned in my earlier post:

'The solution to all of this is quite simple. Talk to your clients. Ask them how you're doing. Correct any problems. Then the evaluations will take care of themselves."

Or as Paul puts it:

'If firms are worried about negative, but anonymous, assessments, they should be getting the feedback directly from clients before the ACC does.'

Take a look at his article where he lays out nine suggestions on what a 'trusted rating system' might look like. If ratings are based on many of those, maybe the 'fussing' will go away – certainly that would be the case for those law firms that get it and are talking with their clients now. 

Full post as published by Legal Marketing Blog on November 19, 2009 (boomark / email).