Last summer we were approached by our friends at Above the Law about the possibility of sponsoring their new law firm rankings. Since we know that lawyers (our target audience) are obsessed with seeing where they stand relative to their peers, it struck me as likely that the sponsorship would be valuable just from an “eyeballs” perspective. But nevertheless I was a little dubious at first about the value of such an undertaking. Is one more law firm ranking really necessary when we are already so well-endowed in this department by the American Lawyer and the National Law Journal, among others?

But after reviewing the research findings it became clear to me that Above the Law was on to something new and different in the way they were approaching the rankings. After all, the traditional approach to law firm ranking, pioneered by Steve Brill at the American Lawyer back in the 1980’s, focuses almost exclusively on questions of revenue and profitability, seeking to establish the law firm pecking order based on such fundamental metrics as total revenue and profits per partner. There is no doubt that this served a real purpose in the market initially, by exposing what had previously been very closely held information to the light of day.

But the legal market has changed so much over the last 30 years and this is what makes Above the Law’s fresh approach both necessary and worthwhile. Instead of focusing so heavily on purely financial performance, Above the Law has developed a much more nuanced scoring system that looks to a variety of criteria, including a range of objective data points (such as changes in headcount over time, “homegrown” partners, and number of women partners) together with subjective feedback from over 20,000 associates, partners, and other members of the legal community. The ultimate goal, in the words of Brian Dalton, the editor who developed the new ranking scheme, is to provide “a more complete picture of each firm, encompassing employee satisfaction, compensation, reputation, desirability as an employer, and data-driven measures of firm growth.”

A number of really interesting things emerge from this new approach. For the first time the Above the Law index lets us look beyond large law firms as monolithic entities and instead gives us meaningful insight into how top firms vary from one market to the next. This is truly useful information – to be able to see how the different offices of Skadden stack up against each other or to take a comparative look at the various big firms offices in a single market.

So we are very pleased to have the opportunity to sponsor Above the Law’s new Power Rankings. We think the program contributes significantly to the information available to partners and associates and law students who are trying to understand the array of choices out there in the market. After all, providing more solid information is what our job as recruiters is all about.