Today Law360 Pulse is releasing a new Prestige Leaders Law Firm ranking which purports to “rank firms on four key indicators of: reputation and prestige that demonstrate how firms are viewed by the legal community including clients, legal media and young lawyers.”  Since its launch in January 2021,  Law360 Pulse has offered their subscribers some uniquely insightful surveys. In my opinion – the Prestige Leaders Survey has some significant deficiencies in its methodology which undermines the reported rankings.

This new report is described as  assessing large US law  firms in four categories: financial health (profits per partner); desirability (how frequently firms were named by law students as their top choice firms for summer associate work); editorial awards (the number of Law360 awards a firm has captured over the past year); and news representation (the number of positive stories about the firm that appear in more than 20 respected legal publications.)

 

 

Here’s the Rub – I have some serious concerns about  two of the four components of the methodology: the financials and the awards.

The financials – if firms did not provide financials to Law360 they basically score a zero in one of the 4 categories.  Think of dropping from an A to a C  because you handed in your term paper late.  Is this acceptable in a survey that wants to be taken seriously?  Seventeen of the 100 firms listed did not provide financials. This has resulted in some absurd ranking results… both Skadden and Cravath  don’t even make the top 25.

Editorial Awards – the methodology indicates that only Law360 rankings and awards are considered. This of course means that lots of prestigious rankings are omitted. Chambers, American Lawyer, US News, The Economist, The Financial Times, Vault … are only some of the  organizations that produce rankings which  are overlooked in the survey. The solipsistic focus on Law360 produced rankings undermines the credibility of Awards category. In his 1962 book “The Image” Scholar Daniel Boorstein coined the term “pseudo-event” to describe an event which was staged in order to be reported on. I now wonder if we have tipped into the territory of pseudo-surveys and pseudo-rankings which exist to  reported in later surveys and become tweet fodder.

News coverage – Since Law360 looks outside their own editorial coverage and includes publications from the wider legal marketplace (Bloomberg, ALM, LexBlog and dozens of other sources)  the news coverage category offers a credible comparison of firms “share of voice” in the legal news market. The Editorial team gets  extra credit for using a third-party service called Lexalytics to do the calculations which attach a  negative or positive sentiment score to every article it has available.

Desirability – Which firms do most law students want to work at? Law360 Pulse surveyed potential Summer Associates   (published in May). The question was “if you could choose to do your summer associateship program at any law firm, which would be your top three firms?” Survey participants could select up to three of these “wish list” firms. We tallied up all the mentions and allotted each firm a number of points equal to the number of times they were mentioned in response to this question.

The Results Top 10 Firms:

  1. Kirkland
  2. Latham
  3. Davis Polk
  4. Gibson Dunn
  5. Paul Weiss
  6. Wachtell
  7. Simpson Thacher
  8. Debevoise
  9. Sidley Austin
  10. Quinn Emanuel

The full list of rankings is available to Law360 Pulse subscribers.

The Law360 Pulse Prestige Leaders is the second in a three-part ranking series. The first, Social Impact Leaders, launched in November. The final law firm Leaderboard report will be released in January.

Was This Survey Ready for Prime Time? The legal market is awash is surveys and rankings. Do we really need a new survey based on incomplete data? Any survey purporting to rank firms based on “prestige” really should be based on impeccable data. IMHO this Law360 Survey wasn’t “ready for prime time” and its methodology needs to be reworked.

Entrepreneur Mark Torchiana the Co-Founder and CEO of Courtroom Insight continues his relentless pursuit of alliances and collaborations which enhance the content, functionality and usability of Courtroom Insight. Earlier this week Courtroom Insight announced a new alliance with Arbitrator Intelligence which will make AI reports and content available to Courtroom Insight subscribers.

Arbitrator Intelligence Report in Courtroom Insight

 

Here is the full press release: Continue Reading Courtroom Insiight Announces (Yet Another) Alliance — Adds Arbitrator Intelligence Reports

LexisNexis® Legal & Professional Law360 is bringing audio to legal news. Starting today  every Law360 story that is published will include a link to a complete audio version of the story. Lexis has collaborated with an Amazon technology called Polly which can simultaneously translate every story to audio as it is published. This feature is being added to all Law360  news content including the UK newsletters.

Rachel Travers, VP of Law360 provided me with a demo during an interview. Polly has a male and a female voice that will each be randomly assigned to 50% of the stories. My brain was expecting to hear  something like menacing serenity of  Hal the computer in 2002 A Space Oddesy. But these voices a incredibly close to human tone and cadence.

As a  big fan of audio books, podcasts, Siri and Alexa, audio legal news has always seemed a no brainer to me. I was advocating for audio legal news back in 2015 when I posted about Modio Legal who was using law students to read audio versions of the ABA Journal. Lawyers are always on the run and can benefit from being able to hear the news when in transit or multitasking.

There are certain limits at launch. The voice is not customizable. I set my GPS directions to provide them in a male Australian English Continue Reading Listen Up! Lexis Launches Law360 Audio Stories Today

LexisNexis subscribers on the East Coast of the United States have been unable to access LexisNexis research services due to an outage on their Amazon Web Services platform. Multiple LexisNexis research products have been unavailable to lawyers throughout Monday. Many users retrieved a “Service Unavailable” error page. instead of the research platform.

According to a recent update from Lexis (approximately 2:30 EST), ” most of the functionality has been restored.”  However, US and International caselaw content is still not working.  The Lexis technology team is working very closely with AWS to quickly resolve all issues.

Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory U.S.    is releasing significant enhancements to the Arbitrator Tool and a new Relationship Assessment Tool within Kluwer Arbitration Practice Plus (KAPP).

Locating information on arbitrators and arbitration awards has always been a challenge.  Wolters Kluwer continues to build out their unique international arbitration platform with new content and functionality to provide new transparency and insights in this specialized area of practice.

The new features leverage machine learning and AI to provide lawyers with new insights for selecting and assessment of international arbitrators.

KAPP  which launched in 2019, is an enhancement to  the Kluwer Arbitration platform. The Arbitrator Tool within KAPP will provide data- Continue Reading Wolters Kluwer Launches Data-Driven Insights on International Arbitrators

Fastcase Unveils NextChapter Docs Form Preparation, Client Management Tools, and Workflow Tools for All Practice Areas

Customizable Workflows, Custom Case Fields, No-Code Document Automation, Checklists, and More CRM Tools for Every Lawyer

Columbus, OH and Washington, DC (November 16, 2021) – NextChapter, a Fastcase company and a leading provider of legal software that gives attorneys an intuitive application for preparing, managing, and filing bankruptcy cases, today announced it has expanded its offerings beyond bankruptcy to benefit lawyers and legal professionals in additional practice areas.

Given its proven record of providing a user-friendly and efficient application for bankruptcy lawyers, NextChapter is well-positioned to provide this new capability that can be used by attorneys and legal professionals in every practice area. NextChapter Docs allows all users to create custom documents, checklists, workflows, client intake processes, document automation solutions, and additional CRM tools.

“Since we launched NextChapter Bankruptcy, our clients working in multiple practice areas have asked if we could enable their entire practice to benefit from our software. We listened and focused on how to keep our tools sleek and efficient,” said Mandy Ballinger, Director of Operations at NextChapter. “Our team has been working hard on NextChapter’s expansion into all practice areas. We have built tools and features that help firms of all sizes automate their document preparation and take their workflows one step further by allowing them to integrate that same data into custom client intake, case management, and texting tools. We are excited to continue to grow these products as we partner with subject matter experts to offer forms that will help firms hit the ground running with NextChapter Docs.”

To that end, NextChapter is soon releasing a Forms Exchange, where seasoned attorneys can upload their form templates to the marketplace for other attorneys to purchase for their own use. “Providing access to pre-built forms designed by subject matter experts will be useful for many of the solo and small firm practitioners,” said NextChapter’s first Forms attorney author Carolyn Elefant.

“Partnering with NextChapter on Forms Exchange is an avenue for MyShingle to bring smart solutions for the solo and small firm attorneys who are responsible for managing their law firms as businesses,” said Elefant, Founder of MyShingle, the longest running blog on solo and small firm practice. “In the same way that many solo and small firm attorneys are providing their small business owner clients with a suite of documents designed for small business owner needs, now the attorney-business owner can access a variety of pre-built forms and guidebooks they need to manage operating their firm, from retainers, of counsel arrangements, flat fees, outsourcing, website TOS, client policies, and more, while incorporating ethics requirements.”

Since 2013, NextChapter has helped bankruptcy professionals prepare cases more efficiently by removing double data entry with linear workflows and introducing real-time validation. Now everyone has the tools at their fingertips to build their own custom, automated workflow solution for their practice areas with these new features of NextChapter. Users can easily upload templates or create them from scratch using an intuitive editor, insert merge tags, and create documents with auto-fill fields, thus eliminating the additional data entry step with NextChapter Docs. In addition to forms automation, users can designate unlimited custom fields, develop online client intake forms, manage client texting, send invoices and collect client payments, and create checklists for their preferred processes, and more.

For more information, visit www.nextchapterlegal.com.

About NextChapter

Built by former paralegal and tech entrepreneur, Janine Sickmeyer, NextChapter’s secure, online web application allows attorneys and their staff to prepare bankruptcy cases using automated workflows, integrations, client texting, hearing schedulers, case management tools, firm customizations and more. With the addition of NextChapter Docs, attorneys are now able to apply these document creation and checklist tools to meet the demands of their workload in a variety of practice areas. Founded in 2013, launched in 2016 and acquired in 2019 by Fastcase, NextChapter is based in Columbus, OH. For more information, follow NextChapter on Twitter at @NextChapterBK or visit nextchapterlegal.com.

 

 

Today, LexisNexis’ CounselLink will be releasing new data which highlights hourly billing rate discrepancies based on gender and ethnicity. The data comes from more than 20,000 attorney profiles in CounselLink  and analyses hourly billing rates on invoices billed between January 2020 and September 2021. I

I had a call with Kris Satkunis, Director of Strategic Consulting at CounselLink. Satkunis described how law firm billing rates are “a proxy for how much the firm values the attorney’s work or skills” and this obviously has a significant impact  on attorney compensation. An examination of the data indicated that  billing rates are generally the same across gender and ethnic groups at the lowest billing rate levels but then begin to diverge at higher levels. Satkunis concludes that “ethnicity is clearly a factor, with Asian billings rates coming in higher than all other groups and Hispanic/LatinX coming in at the lowest.”

Program Today The data will be discussed at a program sponsored by the Buying Legal Counsel at 11 am EST today. Register at this link.

Here are some sample key findings: Continue Reading LexisNexis CounselLink Data Reveals Law Firm Billing Rate Discrepancies Across Gender and Ethnic Groups

Courtroom Insight which helps law firms jumpstart knowledge management projects aimed at collecting internal intelligence on expert witnesses, judges and arbitrators has just announced a new alliance with Wolters Kluwer. Wolters Kluwer which publishers the premier international arbitration product will allow Kluwer Arbitration subscribers to  integrate content from Courtroom Insight with Wolters Kluwer Arbitration content.

According to the announcement the collaboration “delivers instant access to Wolters Kluwer’s Kluwer Arbitration content, including arbitrator profiles and background on awards, experiences, practices, and decision-making, which allows our users to:

·     Gain greater understanding of the arbitrators that may be involved in disputes

·     Analyze critical information about key arbitrators that could impact the case

·     Develop effective legal strategies based on confirmed research

Courtroom Insight customers will find Kluwer  International Arbitration profiles integrated into their Courtroom Insight research experience.

More information about the enhanced partnership with Wolters Kluwer can be found in a  recent press release. To learn more about the unique expert witness and arbitrator knowledge management solution, please Contact Us.

Today, Law360 Pulse  released its new Social Impact Leaders ranking. The new scorecard evaluates law firms on four key indicators of “socially responsible business practices:” racial and ethnic diversity, gender equality, employee engagement and
pro bono service. Ever since The American Lawyer started ranking law firms in 1985 – “profits per partner” has  remained the dominant metric of law firm  success. If rankings drive change – the Social Impact Leaders report could prove to be an important lever of transformation.
The “How Does Your Firm Measure Up” and “Sizing Up Firms’ Pro Bono Work”  reports are publicly available on the Law360 Pulse website.
Key highlights:
  • Covington & Burling, Orrick, WilmerHale, Morrison & Foerster, and Arnold & Porter are the top 5 firms on the Social Impact

Continue Reading Law360 Pulse Ranks Law Firms on Social Impact Leadership

Today marks the official launch of Wolters Kluwer  Legal & Regulatory US  VitalLaw platform. Last week I posted about the practical impact of this change on law librarians and knowledge managers.  VitalLaw offers a new and expanded version of Cheetah. Customers will benefit from a new dashboard; comprehensive federal and state laws and regulations for all 50 states. Special enhancements of the legislative materials include the effective dates and text of future laws and regulations.  Wolters Kluwer is expanding its primary source content by more than 40% and an interface which will enable a streamlined workflow at the point of need.

“We are committed to developing digital solutions that empower our customers to bring deep impact to their organizations and their clients in this quickly changing environment by leveraging expert analysis, actionable information, and intelligent tools,” said Ken Crutchfield, Vice President and General Manager of Legal Markets at Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory U.S. “With the launch of VitalLaw, our customers will have access to solutions that enrich the entire legal process, enabling faster answers and deeper insights to drive to greater efficiency and better outcomes for their clients.”

Laws & Regs Dashboard

The new Laws & Regs Dashboard will provide customers with more consistent and current updating of laws and regulations.  The flagging and presentation of laws and regulations with future effective dates is particularly important for enabling firms to advise their clients on future statutory and regulatory risks.

VitalLaw Dashboard

Free Content Outside the VitalLaw Paywall

VitalLaw is being offered as a destination site that includes news, thought leadership, and other information such as selected caselaw outside of the subscription paywall. Wolters Kluwer will also transition the delivery of its news stories, including its “Dailies,” to VitalLaw.com.

“Our goal is that VitalLaw will become an important source of information for both subscribers and non-subscribers alike,” Crutchfield added. “In addition to new content and functionality, VitalLaw is reflective of Wolters Kluwer’s mission to invest in solutions that provide value, actionable insights, and greater efficiency to our customers at the point of need.”

VitalLaw Public

Faster Access to World-Class Content

VitalLaw is a direct descendant of Commerce Clearing House which transformed legal research back in the 1910’s by combining the most up-to-date primary content accompanied by expert editorial analysis.  Today the expert analysis covers 38 practice areas, including Capital Markets & Securities, Tax, Labor and Employment, and others.

Workflow and Customer Needs.  Efficiency is a major differentiator when law firms respond to RFPs.   Wolters Kluwer designed VitalLaw  to streamline customer’s research workflow with advanced browsing, searching, and collaboration capabilities. The press release indicated that tasks can be completed in less time. The new dashboard and features automate of routine legal tasks to reduce non-billable hours.

To learn more, visit: https://www.wolterskluwer.com/en/solutions/vitallaw-law-firms

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