What Makes a Law Firm Leading? Bloomberg Law's Data-Driven Approach to Rankings

Molly: We developed the program thinking there is more to what makes a law firm leading than just revenue and headcount. So how can we get at that? How can we make a really holistic picture of how law firms are doing?

Narrator: Welcome to Spill the Inc. A podcast by Reputation Inc. Where we feature experts in growth and brand visibility for law firms and architecture, engineering and construction firms. Now let's get started with the show.

Michelle Calcote King: Hi everyone, I'm Michelle Calcote King. I'm your host and I'm the principal and president of Reputation Inc. We're a public relations and marketing agency for B2B professional services firms, including law firms. To learn more, go to rep-inc. That's inc. With a k dot com. So if you're a small or mid sized law firm doing incredible work with cutting edge technology, or you're a boutique that's innovating faster than big law can move, how do you prove that to clients? Bloomberg Law's leading law firm survey and data driven departments have set out to create programs that look at what makes firms competitive beyond size and revenue. So we're continuing our top legal rankings and awards series today with Bloomberg Law's team lead for ranking surveys and awards, Molly. So welcome to the show, Molly.

Molly: Thanks so much for having me.

Michelle Calcote King: Yeah, I'm excited to talk about this. So let's just uh, set the stage with telling us about leading law firm survey and the data driven departments. What are they and what sort of insights do they give?

Molly: Yeah, sure. Um, they are both quantitative submission based programs. Leading law firms, just like it sounds is for law firms Data driven departments is our benchmarking survey for in house legal departments. Same general feel. Um, but leading law firms is what we have and we're working on really hard right now to put out our second annual edition of this. So um, we developed the program thinking there is more to what makes a law firm leading than just revenue and headcount. So how can we get at that? How can we make a really holistic picture of how law firms are doing? So that's what we set out to do.

Michelle Calcote King: Well, so let's talk about the methodology for collecting and analyzing the responses. So tell me how the scoring and rankings work.

Narrator: Sure.

Molly: Um, it is a survey based response, so I'm happy to give anybody a copy of the survey. They can see what questions we're asking. We do have a lot of the traditional metrics like revenue, profits per partner, headcount, all of that kind of thing. But we also go into growth metrics and um, technology and innovation. And we're asking some of those questions that shouldn't be terribly hard for law firms to come up with. But they're different. Right. And so you can show where you're growing and what you're doing that may be a little bit different, um, in a way that we can then, uh, put some quantitative numbers behind and, and really stack that into our ranking.

Michelle Calcote King: Yeah, very timely too, about tech and innovation. Walk us through the weighting process and, and how you ensure fairness.

Molly: Um, so we have the survey divided into four sections or pillars. So there's a finance pillar that encompasses revenue and profits per partner and starting associate salary, those kinds of things. There is a talent pillar which, which incorporates attorney headcount, but also your business staff headcount. Because we're really interested in like our firms hiring a bunch more tech staff or IT staff to support some of these other things. Um, you know, and where they're growing. Um, the third pillar then is growth. Right. So we're asking kind of are you bringing laterals in? Um, what kind of practice areas or sectors are you targeting for growth? And then finally we have a tech and innovation section, um, that we have completely revamped this year. Um, that includes questions about what kinds of technologies they're using, their adoption rates, what they're doing with the data that come out of it. Um, and then are they doing AI specific training and what kind of governance do they have around that? Um, what we do is we then put all the questions for each of the pillars together and create a score. Um, so that you could sort by that. When you're looking at the overall ranking, you say, I don't care about who's number one overall. I want to see who leads in technology. Right. So we end up with these kind of four individual rankings and then we weight them together to have a comprehensive overall leading law firm score. And that is the big ranking. Um, last year that ended up 40% finances, 40% talent, 15 growth, and 5 innovation. We are still playing with this year's, but I really want to kind of boost the tech and innovation a little bit as that becomes more and more important.

Michelle Calcote King: Great. Okay, so you've got the overall score. And then can firms rank? They might not rank in the top overall, but they might be strong in one of those pillars. Do you also publish those as well?

Molly: And we actually, uh, one of our differentiators is that we publish it as an interactive data viz. So you can go in and see, you can sort, you can filter, you can open up a scorecard for any one firm and See all their main stats right there. Um, it's, in my opinion, much better than just publishing a table.

Michelle Calcote King: Yeah, absolutely. Because that lets people get to what they really want to know. How do you, you mentioned all this data. Have you found that firms are hesitant to share any data? And how do you handle that?

Molly: Some firms, yes. They'll say, we just don't share revenue. And I was like, okay, that's fine. Um, my, our criteria for getting an overall leading law firm score is that you have to share your immediate past year's revenue and attorney headcount. Those two things are required because they're the biggest two metrics, even though it's a really holistic score. But if they don't share those, they can still rank highly in any one of the other pillars. So it's fine. Like you don't want to share.

Michelle Calcote King: Go for it. Right, yeah, that makes sense. And so you mentioned earlier that you've really revamped the tech and innovation pillar. And that really leads into. My next question was this stuff is evolving so fast every day. Right. We're all just struggling to keep up. How does your team design those questions around such fast moving technologies and the landscape looking so different?

Molly: It is tough. Um, we do a lot of talking to both our internal, our reporters, our legal analysts, people that really have the pulse of the industry, as well as some of our stakeholders externally to say, what are you guys doing and um, what would help you if you knew it about the industry? Um, so right now we've got some real surface questions in there about are you offering an AI specific training and if you are, what percentage of your attorneys have completed it? Right. So it's not super, super deep dive. Cause we also have to keep it high enough level that any firm can answer.

Narrator: Right.

Molly: Um, and I try not to get brand specific in this. Like, okay, are you using Harvey? Are you using, you know, Bloomberg Law's AI Assistant? Are you using, you know, because that doesn't really make you better if you're just using a thing.

Michelle Calcote King: Right.

Molly: But what are you doing and how many people have adopted it is kind of where we're at now. But I anticipate it growing and evolving probably every year.

Michelle Calcote King: So what are you, are you finding anything surprising? So in terms of, uh, let's say, um, the firm size and tech investment, um, is that correlated or are you finding other interesting findings about the innovation and the technology used in law firms?

Molly: You know, I was expecting to, to see kind of a economy of scale, if you will, where the bigger firms had more Stuff, Um, and they really don't that much. They may have more pieces of software, but across the board about 40 or 50% will say we have well integrated systems. Right. Like I was kind of assuming a smaller firm that may not have very many systems would say yes, we have a fully integrated ecosystem and we're good. The bigger firms are also saying they have pretty well integrated systems. The amount of AI training is pretty similar across sizes of firms. So yeah, we'll dig in a little deeper. I'm sure we'll find some stuff. But overall I was actually surprised to see that there weren't as many differences by size as I was expecting.

Michelle Calcote King: Yeah, that is fascinating. Which is good news for smaller and mid sized firms that they're, they're able to keep up. So.

Molly: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

Michelle Calcote King: So let's talk about, uh, if firms want to participate, um, they've not participated before. What are some of the questions you've gotten from firms about participating? What are some of the most frequent.

Molly: Some of the most frequent are. Do I have to answer every question? And that is no, you share what you want. Um, but here's the kind of downsides of not sharing. Um, the other question is what are you going to do with the data? And this was a really hard one last year because the answer was I don't know until I have it right. And then we put together this amazing interactive visualization and then once firms saw it they're like, oh yeah, I went in on that. Um, so I did get that question again this year. Like, are you going to do it the exact same way? The kind of default landing, the same? Um, and the answer is no, not really. Because we're trying to innovate every year. Um, we're trying to let people have their hands in the data more, um, and really make it a useful tool as well as just a ranking.

Michelle Calcote King: And tell me, what are some tips for firms that are aiming to participate?

Molly: So my biggest tip is share as much as you can. Um, because we do score just about every element like in the survey we're very specific about. We're going to score this question and it's going to be tied to your firm and we can publish it. So we'll publish your starting associate salary. We're also very careful to say we're going to score this question, but we're going to use it in aggregate and only talk about the industry we're not going to give away. I'll, uh, ask what sectors are you targeting for growth next year? Firms don't want Us to necessarily give that away. That's potentially their own kind of um, competitive intelligence. Right. But I want to know where the industry is going and I want to know that the firms have a plan for things that they're targeting. So yeah, I'm going to score it, but I'm not going to tell people about it or on an aggregate industry level. Um, and then there's some questions. Every once in a while we'll throw one in and say we're really just curious about the industry. We're not going to score this one, but we'd love it if you tell us, you know, so firms can use that guidance within the survey to decide what they want to share. But, but more is better. And also uh, one of the other questions that I get is okay, well how are you going to use this? Or we have offices everywhere. What number do you want for say starting associate salary? Um, and the answer is usually give me your top market value M. Because when I put a reporter on this data they're going to say XYZ law firm pays their starting associates up to this number. So it will give you the highest boost of your score that it can and it will. We will make sure to report it as up to knowing that people have different market rates.

Michelle Calcote King: That's good info. Um, do you find that um, there are some common misunderstandings that you run into about participating?

Molly: Um, the biggest one so far is why can't you just get this information elsewhere? Right. Amla has my numbers. Can you just take those? And it's tough because we, we really want this to be a proactive submission based program. My team right now does not have the bandwidth to go out and source data from other places.

Michelle Calcote King: Right.

Molly: If you're a firm and you want to participate, I don't care if you give me the numbers AMLO gave back to you, but you have to give them to me and then you're included.

Michelle Calcote King: Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. So if you're a legal marketer, you've got a million uh, surveys and um, submissions to do. How would you um, help them determine the ROI of participating? Um, in, in this, this particular one,

Molly: I think the leading law firm survey has so much potential for. It's not just a ranking. Right. You can really get in there and dig into the data. You, especially for the firms that are, you know, small mid sized boutique that are like, well we're never going to make the top of the list. Well you might. We group firms by size in our um, in our data visualizations. We're Actually building right now a um, comparison tool. So you could say, I want to see this firm and this firm next to each other so that you could go in and look at how your firm compares to who you really think your competitors are. Or there is ability to use how. We have reported the data in so many more ways than, uh, you know, many other traditional outlets.

Michelle Calcote King: And do firms that participate get access to data that others don't? Or is all the data available?

Molly: So all the data is available to our subscribers? Yep.

Michelle Calcote King: Okay. And um, one question that came to mind is we're talking data. And so that, that, that speaks to me as like numbers and uh, non narrative story. Not, it's not a story they need to tell. Is that right? Is there a, is there a narrative story that's important for firms who are submitting to, to do, or is it just strict data?

Molly: Um, it is 99% data. I have one box at the very end that says, you know what, Tell us something you're really proud of.

Narrator: Right.

Molly: M. Like here's, here's a spot where if I didn't capture something in the data and you really want us to know, go for it. It's not scored. We don't put any points behind it for kind of the data driven scoring component, but we do write a narrative story when we publish the list. And so we'll say that box says, you know, we may pull from this a quote that says, XYZ law firm is super proud of doing this thing.

Michelle Calcote King: Right.

Molly: We also reach out and talk to firm leaderships. Like we did a podcast series last year, um, to kind of put a little meat around, you know, the skeleton that the data give us.

Michelle Calcote King: Got it. Okay. And then so how are you seeing firms use these results? I mean, you mentioned this interactive data, but I would guess that it's a badge of honor to show that you are very innovative. Tell me about that.

Molly: The day we published last year, I had, um, one of the smaller firms call me within hours and say, oh my gosh, can we say we're number two on the small firms tech and innovation list? I said, yes, you absolutely can. Um, we give all firms that participate a press kit afterwards with a high res logo and a press release template and kind of everything they could use to promote. And so we saw firms put all things up on their social, on their website saying, hey, we were recognized by Bloomberg Law in, in this category or we're number five overall. You know, whatever it they like to tout it.

Michelle Calcote King: And what is your timeline each year? Um, in Terms of submissions and when you publish the results.

Molly: We open submissions in early January, figuring we give firms time to close their books on the last year. We ask for the whole prior year data. So, you know, next year when we open in 2027, we'll say, what was your 2026 revenue? And we give them about three months to finalize and then try to publish in early summer. So I still have a few firms straggling, getting their data in by, you know, at this time, the end of April. Um, and we're hoping to publish sometime May, June.

Michelle Calcote King: Okay, all right, that makes a lot of sense. So is there, and you mentioned some, some new things that I'd like to understand that. So tell me specifically what has changed in terms of your methodology or coverage?

Molly: Um, the biggest thing that changed is the tech and innovation section. We, last year had a kind of surface level. Like, are you doing some of these things? Yes or no? We blew that out and said, you know, I think we listed 19 different types of legal tech. Like, are you using each of these things? If you're using them, what's your adoption rate? What do you do with the data that you get back? Like, do you collect data out of the system? Do you use it for making business decisions? Like, where are you going with this? Um, so we have a really robust tech and innovation section. Um, we are also planning a lot more story coverage. So I think last year we did the main interactive graphic and I think maybe five subsequent stories. We may have a dozen this year. Like really looking into, um, specific parts of the data and pulling out those pillar scores that go into the overall score and saying, all right, let's dig into tech, let's dig into growth. Because we really want to highlight the firms that are doing well in various areas. Because just having the most money or the most people does not necessarily make you the best law firm.

Michelle Calcote King: Yeah, um, completely understand. So is there anything, um, new coming up for in your area at Bloomberg Law? Um, beyond what we've discussed today?

Molly: Wow, that's a good one. So the leading law firms will publish this summer. We, um, are kind of promoting data driven departments again, and that is the in house equivalent. Um, what we're doing with that is making it a little bit more industry benchmark and less company to company. Because law firms want to say, I want to see the data for my firm and my competitor and I want to look at that side by side. Um, the in house teams I've talked to don't want to do that. They don't want to say this is Coke versus Pepsi. They want to say in this industry, and with a team this size, here are the things that we can expect. They want benchmarking. Um, so we're kind of taking that program and retooling it a little bit. We will reopen that for submissions, I think, in the beginning of the year also, and try to kind of get the in house teams in on that as well. Um, those are the big ones.

Michelle Calcote King: Great. No, that's all exciting. Well, um, thank you for your time today. Um, that's been very informative. Um, and we have been talking to Molly of Bloomberg Law.

Narrator: Thanks for listening to Spill the Ink, a podcast by Reputation, Inc. We'll see you again next time. And be sure to click subscribe to get future episodes.