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Thoughts on Law Firm Rankings : A Function of Size and Expertise

By Andis Kaulins

Some questioning of law firm rankings is found at The Belly of the Beast in MIRED IN METRICS? HAVE SOME MORE!.

Although the criticism of law firm rankings found there is surely justified in some particulars, it is nevertheless unavoidable that the criteria for a top 10 or top 100 or top 500 ranking of anything is always a function of the values and priorities of whoever is doing such a ranking.

Traditional law firm rankings have a very legitimate function in pointing out where the top legal power -- traditionally seen -- is located at any given time, and that is an important criteria.

For example, if your life, professional career or reputation were on the line and only talented lawyers could save it - where would you go for legal representation? The fact is that you would be very well advised, if you could afford it, to go the law firms ranked high by traditional methods.

In the days of Watergate when I was an associate at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison in New York City (a law firm known as "Paul, Weiss" in the trade), Paul, Weiss represented Vice-President Spiro Agnew in the Watergate matter. You are talking here about a very conservative politician seeking legal help from a very politically liberal law firm in New York City, a law firm which began as the first mixed Christian and Jewish law firm in the Big Apple. Do the political leanings of the lawyers matter at all to clients in such a case? Apparently not. Clients want the best legal talent and best legal services available.

That applies not only to high-end litigation, but also to the making of billion-dollar mergers and to the design and structuring of other large-scale financial transactions, etc.

The "traditional" ranking of law firms is thus in fact a very good to fit for "big league" law.
You go where the EXPERTISE is, and that narrows the field considerably to the traditional top law firms.

This of course says nothing negative about the day-to-day law practiced by lawyers and smaller law firms everywhere, which may be equally competent, just on a different scale.

Full post as published by LawPundit on August 08, 2010 (boomark / email).