Methodology, non-inclusion of rankings, articles and FAQ

Evaluation Methodology & Articles

Why we only show Gold Standard Law Firm Rankings

If you hire law firms using a Gold Standard Law Firm Ranking, your decision process is always  fundamentally correct. Also, you can always defend your decision to your superiors in a simple and clear way. ​ 

Because Gold Standard Law Firm Rankings are doing an extensive market research by researching former and current cases law firms have and are working on. The detailed definition of a Gold Standard Law Firm Ranking and their research process can be found here (What are Gold Standard Law Firm Rankings).

Our table of Gold Standard Law Firm Rankings shows you which Ranking is strongest in which country and which legal field. 

Look for law firms who are ranked in as many Gold Standard Law Firm Rankings as possible.

Avoid law firms who are not ranked in any Gold Standard Law Firm Rankings.

By using Gold Standard Rankings, you can therefore always defend your decision to your superiors in a simple and clear way.

There are over 1.000 Law Firm Rankings worldwide. You can lose a lot of time and resources trying to get into the wrong Law Firm Rankings. 

Be careful: The quality of the research process of a Law Firm Ranking reflects directly to every law firm ranked in such a publication.

Since buyers of legal services are often from the legal profession themselves, they will know if you are participating in low quality Law Firm Rankings.

Therefore, make sure you participate only in Gold Standard Law Firm Rankings. These Rankings have a proven, extensive research process. The detailed definition of a Gold Standard Law Firm Ranking and their research process can be found here (What are Gold Standard Law Firm Rankings).

Due to the extensive research process, it is of course difficult to get into Gold Standard Law Firm Rankings. But that is precisely the point of a thorough evaluation process. Would you like to go to a dentist who is included in rankings which make it very easy for everyone to be included?

Be aware though that there are differences in quality even in the Gold Law Firm Rankings. For instance: One Ranking can be better in Germany / Banking & Finance, but another one may have the better results for e.g. Sweden / Capital Markets.

Law Firms are therefore advised to cover as many Gold Standard Rankings as possible. That way, if one Ranking in one year is better than another Ranking, you will still be able to show that you are ranked in the best current Gold Standard Ranking.

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Gold Standard Law Firm Rankings

Gold Standard Rankings use a research process that we believe allows for the best evaluation of law firms and lawyers.

Such a process consists of the following components:

  1. Collecting law firm cases, commonly referred to as “matters”. Such matters document the work of law firms.
  2. Every year, law firms must update their matters regarding new activities and/or submit new matters.
  3. No less than an average of 10 matters per submitted legal field must be analysed for an assessment. The more matters on average are collected, the higher we rate the publications.
  4. There is a definition given by the ranking for each legal field, which can be submitted for evaluation.
  5. The matters will be analysed in terms of their quality as well as their scope.
  6. There is a per-matter request for other law firms and lawyers that also worked on the matter or were on the opposing side in contested cases.
  7. The evaluation of the received material and market feedback is done by the publications researchers and not by a judging panel.
  8. All the factors listed above contribute together to the evaluation of law firms and lawyers.
  9. We do not include league tables where accumulated deals are collected and the ranking of a law firm is determined by that. Although also these publications are recommendable from their research process point of view, we do not include them because their research process is not comparable enough with the above described research process and only focuses on large law firms.

When you are using Law Firm Rankings to buy legal services, you can use these Gold Standard Rankings without hesitation.

Be aware though that there are differences in quality even in those Law Firm Rankings. For instance: One Ranking can today be better in Germany / Banking & Finance, but another one may have the better results for e.g. Germany / Capital Markets. 

To see which Law Firm Ranking is currently the best in which country / legal field, please see our Law Firm Ranking Search.

Law Firms are therefore advised to cover as many Gold Standard Rankings as possible.

That way, if one Gold Standard Ranking in one year is less good in e.g. Sweden / Dispute Resolution than another Gold Standard Ranking, you will still be able to show that you are ranked in the best current Gold Standard Ranking.  

Please note that the above described process is just our approach and by no means the only way to evaluate the quality of Law Firm Rankings.

Gold Standard Law Firm Rankings are publications who which fulfil our criteria described above in “What are Gold Standard Law Firm Rankings”. 

According to our research, the following publications are therefore Gold Standard Law Firm Rankings:

🥇 Asia Law

🥇 Benchmark Litigation

🥇 Chambers & Partners

🥇 GAR 100 Global Arbitration Review (GAR 100)

🥇 IAM Patent 1000

🥇 IFLR 1000

🥇 International Tax Review

🥇 JUVE

🥇 Latin Lawyer

🥇 Leaders League

🥇 Legal 500

🥇 Managing IP Property IP Stars (MIP)

🥇 World Trademark Review 1000 (WTR 1000)

When you are using Law Firm Rankings to buy legal services, you can use these Gold Standard Rankings without hesitation.

Be aware though that there are differences in quality even in those Law Firm Rankings. For instance: One Ranking can today be better in Germany / Banking & Finance, but another one may have the better results for e.g. Germany / Capital Markets. 

To see which Law Firm Ranking is currently the best in which country / legal field, please see our Law Firm Ranking Search.

Law Firms are therefore advised to cover as many Gold Standard Rankings as possible.

That way, if one Gold Standard Ranking in one year is less good in e.g. Sweden / Dispute Resolution than another Gold Standard Ranking, you will still be able to show that you are ranked in the best current Gold Standard Ranking.

For ongoing background information on Gold Standard Law Firm Rankings, please go to our  Legal Industry Articles Section and select “Analyses of Law Firm Rankings”.

If you want to publish your own article with our website, please go to our articles publishing info.

Our evaluation process

A Gold Standard Law Firm Ranking with a high-quality score in the Law Firm Ranking Report can assess the quality of law firms that much better than Gold Standard Law Firm Rankings with a lower quality score.

That being said, we can recommend the use of all Gold Standard Rankings without hesitation. 

To be always prepared for pitches, beauty parades and general sales activities, we advise Law Firms to cover as many Gold Standard Rankings as possible.

That way, if one Gold Standard Ranking in one year is less good in e.g. Sweden / Dispute Resolution than another Gold Standard Ranking, you will still be able to show that you are ranked in the best current Gold Standard Ranking.  

To see which Law Firm Ranking is the best in which country / legal field, please see our Law Firm Ranking Search.

One factor are the votes of our registered users. Here, our users provide us with information how accurate the research results of Law Firm Rankings are. Also, our users give us feedback on the operational quality of the research process of Law Firm Rankings. We watch this feedback cautiously and will delete votes and feedback if we see manipulation (e.g. one user is voting on a high number of jurisdictions and / or legal fields or if votes from multiple users show the same results and are given almost at the same time).

The other factor is our own, constant evaluation of the research process of Law Firm Rankings. This process is described above on this page in “What are Gold Standard Law Firm Rankings”

However, that is only our reasoning and should not be seen as the only method to evaluate Law Firm Rankings.

Non-included Law Firm Rankings

Non-included Law Firm Rankings are considered publications that we cannot recommend.

That is the case for publications which to our knowledge do not apply the research process described on this page in “What are Gold Standard Rankings” or publications where we cannot reproduce the research process.

Our voting process

Registered users of the Law Firm Rankings Report.

There are no costs involved in the registration or in participating in voting process.

For each combination of Country / Legal field / Law Firm Ranking, a user can vote once per year. When the Law Firm Ranking updates its results, the user can then vote again.

A user can not change his / her vote once it is cast.