Optimising legal directory submissions – Q&A with Maltin PR and Chambers USA
Maltin PR recently held a Q&A session with the research managers from Chambers USA, offering fresh insights that law firms in the US and around the world can use to optimise their legal directory submissions and rankings.
To watch the full webinar, please click here.
For a transcript of the panel discussion, please see below:
Matthew Court, Research Manager, Chambers UK/USA
Eleanor Dobson, Research Manager, Chambers UK/USA
Nell Maudsley, Head of Legal PR, Maltin PR
Alastair Mitchell, Directories Associate, Maltin PR
Nell Maudslay
Good afternoon, everyone. We are delighted to be hosting our live webinar Q&A with Chambers & Partners USA research managers Eleanor Dobson and Matthew Court. Let’s kick off immediately. Over to you Alastair.
Alastair Mitchell
Thanks very much, Nell. I’m Alastair. I am the Directories Associate here at Maltin PR. We’ve been working with law firms on the Chambers and other directory submissions referees and all the rest of it for quite a long time now. So the way that I’d like to run this session is if the participants would like to type in any questions in the chat and the comments. I will read those out to Elena and Matthew, the Chambers USA research managers that I just mentioned there. And they will be, I’m sure, very happy to answer today. Please, do get started with your questions, whenever you feel like it. Just to kick us off, Matthew, if you don’t mind, quite a few clients have noticed that you’ve moved to offering 30 references for practices. What is the thinking is behind that, and what should firms be doing when choosing references, so they’re the most helpful for the researcher, and for the firm?
Matthew Court
I’m happy to kick off on that one. I think there’s a couple of reasons why we’ve upped it to 30 this year, I guess not least among them, it’s an opportunity for firms to put forward referees that might offer us an insight into perhaps more junior lawyers that sometimes get omitted perhaps, or not able to feature on the 20 referee list historically. So that’s something to bear in mind when putting together the list of 30 referees. That’s definitely something that would benefit us, something to take advantage of. I think, as well, it gives an opportunity to increase response rates, and essentially give us as much feedback or more feedback with which to make our analyses go forwards.
Alastair Mitchell
We do get a client occasionally asking us, does the referee by practice area model- is that a little bit trickier for a bigger practice? Let’s say you’ve got a practice with 20 partners; 20 or more associates; those thirty referees are not going to go quite as far as if you’ve got a very small practice with 2 partners and 5 associates. Does that disadvantage a big practice in a way? Or do you have some way to balance that?
Eleanor Dobson
So generally, when we’re conducting our interviews, we will ask the referees to open up, rather than just the specific person who referred them. We will say are there any other junior members of the team that you have worked with. So we try to make it less limiting in terms of the feedback they can provide, and we do take that into consideration when we are looking at the associates or more junior partners. We do appreciate they might get less feedback from the referees, and that is taken on board. But like I said, in the interview we do try to kind of encourage as much feedback from the referee about everyone that was involved in any sort of matter.
Alastair Mitchell
Right. So a question we get a lot is – this comes up all the time – a lot of our work, the firm would say, is confidential. Is there some sort of penalty or is it not as good to put in a submission that could be sometimes entirely confidential, as opposed to one where you are able to disclose your work? Because there are also practice areas, as you probably know, where you may not be able to disclose any of the matters, and they’re all in the red confidential section? Criminal areas for example. Is that a problem for you guys, when you’re reviewing submissions and making ranking decisions?
Matthew Court
No, that doesn’t disadvantage a submission at all if the matters are confidential. I think what matters more than that is that we have the level of detail in the write-up to be able to analyse that work. Yeah, the only thing I suppose that it would affect would be that the write-up obviously wouldn’t be able to include any matter highlights in our write-up. But in terms of our view of a firm and our ability to analyse the work that’s put forward. No, that’s not going to disadvantage a firm.
Alastair Mitchell
Another question has come in regarding regional submissions: “Is there any penalty for submitting references only for individuals we want to promote in a broader nationwide category, with no references?” So some of the nationwide categories don’t have the option to submit references, so can you use the local sections to build a lot of comments for the person you actually want ranked in the nationwide section?
Eleanor Dobson
Yeah, and that’s completely what we encourage. We do encourage you to submit your references- as you said, the nationwide ones, not all of them, a good chunk of them, but there have been a select few where we don’t take on referees, and we will instead look at all the feedback that we do get in the regional areas. And that is what we’re encouraging firms to do for those areas where we’re drawing from statewide references, and submissions as well.
Matthew Court
Worth adding maybe on that, that you’re still able to submit a written submission with work highlights for that individual for a nationwide section, and firms are encouraged to do that as well to give us a view of the work in the context of a nationwide submission.
Alastair Mitchell
It’s always tricky to balance the nationwide with the regional and the statewide efforts, isn’t it? I think, another question that arises quite often among people that we work with that relates to that is to do with the location of the attorney. So for litigation or bankruptcy, people say, well, we fly all over the place. I’m based on the East Coast but I’ve been working nearly all year in California. Should we put him in or put her in for DC, or if there isn’t a nationwide section, do you just go purely on where that person’s base is, as it were, even if their work is really nothing to do with that location? Do you have any recommendations for us to navigate that slightly tricky situation?
Matthew Court
So as you just said, that’s the basis we use for ranking departments and firms. It’s where they’re based. So for example, if a corporate department in Texas is handling work across the country, then they’re encouraged to submit for the Texas corporate section and put the references forward for the Texas corporate section. That’s how we that’s how we organise their rankings.
Alastair Mitchell
Thank you. Another question about references here. What proportion of the responses are by email, or a survey, or by telephone?
Eleanor Dobson
So we’re increasingly trying to use our survey tool, just because we found that it’s more flexible. We’re finding people are more willing to spend a few minutes doing that. However, it does depend as well. We do initially reach out to our referees via email offering the option. It does depend as well on the number of firms you might have put down as a reference to if they’ll get a phone interview. We like to actually speak to them on the phone in order to have a really engaging and in depth interview as opposed to a survey. It does depend on the nature of the section as well. You can find that you’ll have higher engagement with the survey on particular sections than you might with others. So it does vary. It’s hard to give a kind of solid answer to that.
Alastair Mitchell
Thank you very much. On the submissions, we often get asked questions about bios. Who do you expect to see profiled in the bios, and is there a number, a proportion of the practice? Or how many is too many? Help us to understand a little bit about what a good set of bios looks like on a submission.
Matthew Court
There’s no explicit minimum or maximum that we necessarily set. But having said that, obviously, our research is confined by the number of referees, as we’ve discussed, that we can put forward as a number of matters and a submission that firms are able to put forward, which obviously limits the information we can get on a certain group of attorneys. So I suppose bearing that in mind, somewhere around four or five would probably be around the average. Of course, if there’s a lawyer in a department that’s been listed for a number of years, and firms might consider to be perhaps safer in the rankings, or that feel less need to give us information on them, then perhaps they could be omitted and perhaps substituted with another attorney. But I would say four or five, probably around the average amount and a workable amount in terms of the amount of information that we’re able to analyse in a cycle.
Alastair Mitchell
And what about the content of those bios? You know quite often, attorneys want to include a lot of the non-fee earning activity. Do you think it’s helpful to put all those scholarships, committee memberships, academic posts, pro bono work, things like that? Is that helpful? Is that what you’re looking for? Or is it better to focus on fee earning work, or something else?
Eleanor Dobson
For me, it’s obviously it’s good to get some background, maybe not to go into extensive detail, you know, we’re trying to get through quite a few at a time. As Matt said, it can be quite hard for some people to limit their bios a bit. But you know, I think it’s better to focus on more recent achievements, or slightly bigger work as well. But like I said, any background is good, but maybe trying to keep it succinct is also helpful for us.
Alastair Mitchell
We do try to help with that. Okay, so here’s another one that you are, I’m sure, extremely familiar with. Why is it so important to get the referees in on time, but it seems that with the submission, it’s kind of okay to let it slip a little bit, if I’m allowed to say that. Could you just tell us a little bit about that.
Matthew Court
Sure. Well, the referee outreach, and that portion of the research is what comes first, basically, and that’s where there is less, bordering on no scope for delay or kind of movement on the schedule. So it’s more important to get those in first, so they’re in and you are able to proceed with contacting them, in the time that we’re able to, you know, within the allotted schedule. Submissions and kind of analysing the written submission and going through the the work highlights generally comes after that. So there’s generally more scope for it to come in slightly later. Obviously, it’s kind of an ideal world that will come in on the deadline, but to the extent that there is scope for delay, it generally is in the written submission.
Alastair Mitchell
Okay, thank you very much. This question touches on a very hot topic at the moment, diversity statistics, you guys have been gathering those for a number of years now. I think quite a few of our members of our audience are interested in you know, how those play into the rankings or how the firms appear in the guide, and is there any sort of penalty for firms that either don’t include or are candid and displays a diversity status, even if they’re not very flattering and not very diverse. There’s quite a few questions around. How are those used, and what happens if you don’t put them in?
Eleanor Dobson
Yeah, of course, there’s no, there’s no penalty for firms not putting them in. Obviously, it’s incredibly useful for us, because we’re trying to ensure that we have, you know, a really good coverage of the market and ensuring everyone kind of gets a chance to be included within the rankings and just ensure that we’re up to date as well, really, as I said, there’s absolutely there’s no penalty for not doing it, it’s more beneficial to us and for us, as a company and an organisation to get a wider understanding of the market overall, and just kind of the general legal sphere.
Alastair Mitchell
Okay, great. That always comes up. And I think firms do struggle to summon up that information in a lot of detail that I think would be really helpful for researchers. It’s difficult to change that overnight. Okay, so we spoke about references, submissions, obviously, we’re jumping around a little bit here. You have your interviews as well. What role do they play in the research process? Perhaps you could confirm the policy, as you say, you don’t interview all the firms. So I suppose there’s a few questions there. How do you select which firms get an interview? And what is the impact or the significance of that interview, on that firms prospects, potential rankings, or the guide?
Matthew Court
First of all, how do we select those interviews. Essentially, it’s at the discretion of the researcher, in any given year, to decide which firms they speak to, as part of their research, that we generally try to sort of mix it up year on year. So we don’t favour any firm over another over the course a few years. So it’ll be based on who got spoken to you last year. You know, if any sort of feedback has come up in the course of prior research that might indicate that it’d be worth speaking to one firm for any particular reason. But generally, it’s to get a sort of even cross section of the firms that submit, and I suppose on that point, I would say that, you know, we generally do tend to sort of skew towards the firms that do put in a submission.
Alastair Mitchell
If firm A does an interview and firm B doesn’t, is one at an advantage?
Matthew Court
It doesn’t impact our ranking decisions at all. So there’s no kind of benefit in that sense. It does give us obviously, an insight into the last year in the firm in the department gives us a sense of what’s been going on, across the course of the research, when you speak to the number of firms, you obviously get a great picture of what’s going on in the market. And then, of course, the second part of the calls, allows us to get a greater insight into the rest of the market by kind of going through our current rankings and getting that feedback. So those are that’s kind of what we get out of it. And no, there isn’t any sort of kind of inherent bias in terms of ranking. There’s no kind of relationship between the two, I should say.
Alastair Mitchell
Right. So one of our participants asks, What can we do to ensure that you get feedback from references who say they that they weren’t contacted? We’ve seen this a few times as well. So when we’ve had situations where references have said they haven’t been contacted, and they’ve checked through the spam folder, they’ve sort of done everything that they could possibly do to try and find that email or sometimes somebody doesn’t get through, you know, is there any sort of workaround? Would you accept comments for example, if you know we or the firm gathered them, and emailed them over to you or, if the referee emailed them to you directly? Do you have any ways of receiving comments outside of your usual system?
Eleanor Dobson
Yeah, of course. And, you know, this is something that we do here from time to time. And, you know, we do take into account, various things happen, you know, emails can be accidentally deleted, go into spam and get missed, this kind of thing. So when a firm says someone’s not been contacted, we do our best to investigate it. You know, in particular circumstances, well, we do allow for the firm to actually give the email address of the researcher to the referees, if the referees are insisting that they can’t, or they haven’t heard from us after we’ve followed up kind of thing. And if firms are choosing to do that, we do ask that you contact the researcher and just double check that they’re, you know, they’ve got capacity that they’re still within the research period, and everything. So we do have options like that. But also, if if firms are asking referees to contact the research directly, it’s generally best to ask if there’s a chance to speak to them, or how to best give feedback, because that will give us the opportunity to then offer them either an interview or to send the survey or you know, so we can all get kind of the best feedback as possible. So we do have options. But yes, if the firm is kind of concerned about the referee rate, it’s always encouraged to either contact the research manager overseeing the section. So either you know, Matt, myself or one of our fellow colleagues, or to get in touch with the researcher who you can will be able to find on the research schedule, because their name is listed with the section.
Alastair Mitchell
Absolutely. So one part of the submission that can often be a little mysterious to firms, we find is the feedback on the market section. What’s the significance of that if a firm doesn’t fill that in? Do you sort of think this firm is not very engaged or doesn’t know the market too well? Or if they do provide those details, do you think, oh wow, this firm is a really busy active market participant? Does that sort of thing flow from that section?
Eleanor Dobson
Again, there’s not a penalty for this, it is very useful for us. And it does demonstrate that the firm is quite engaged in the research process, which obviously appreciated and useful, but it’s more beneficial to us, because then we can get a wider scope of the market. And it’s a good way of getting feedback in and giving your thoughts on your peers, or anyone you think is under ranked. And so yeah, basic, basically, no, there’s, there’s, you know, there’s no penalty. It’s just incredibly useful and very much appreciated by you know, all the research managers and researchers as well, just to give us that really broad understanding of the market.
Okay. Interesting question coming off the back of that. If you do fill it in, are you less likely to get offered an interview? It’s quite a good question… So if you fill out that feedback section really well, will you guys then say, Oh, well, we’ve already got enough information from them, so we won’t do an interview? I’m sure it doesn’t, but does it lower your chances of getting asked to interview?
Matthew Court
No it wouldn’t matter. And also as Eleanor said, we wouldn’t make any of those inferences either about kind of being active in the market or anything, if firms do or don’t fill that out. It’s more of a sort of icing on the cake, I suppose for us.
Alastair Mitchell
Quite a broad question here. I’ll just put it to you and see you think. What what kind of information are you looking for, when you ask how an office or you could say practice, stands out, or how a department stands out? What are the one or two things that you find quite persuasive if the firms answer that question.
Matthew Court
Anything that that shows us and the researcher what distinguishes that department necessarily from others in the market, really whether that be sector specialisms, or geographies they’re active in. Yeah, of course, you’ve got the work highlight section, but any kind of brief, you know, allusions to big deals, for example that that a firm has handled that year, and anything that gives the researcher a relatively detailed enough kind of snapshot of the firm and what sets it apart from its competitors is really what we’re looking for there.
Alastair Mitchell
Okay, so one participant has asked about the sort of circulation if you like, I don’t think you guys are doing hard copies these days, but what’s the reach in terms of audience, you know, readership, web site, users, whatever you’ve got to give us an idea of who’s reading this information and how many?
Eleanor Dobson
Yeah, I was gonna say, well, that’s not really part of our kind of job role, we’re more kind of interested in actually getting those rankings out there in the publication or sorted. Or I would encourage any firms with that sort of question to get in touch with our enquiries team, because they’ll be able to have those conversations with the marketing group, or even with the firm in contact with marketing group that can give you the relevant answer to that.
Alastair Mitchell
Thank you very much. A the question on the submission here. Sometimes there’s quite a lot of thinking about the order of the matters. Is there a lot of significance to that? You know, you guys are probably reading very quickly; you’ve got a very large volume of information to get through. Do you sort of think, or are you scanning through thinking, matter 1, 2, 3, really good… are those the ones that you need, or if you did enough, basically, would that make a difference? Tell us a little bit about that.
Matthew Court
I mean, you’re right in saying there is a lot of information for researchers and research managers to go through. But in analysing the submissions, they are going to look at every matter put forward. So no, I suppose the order in which their in doesn’t necessarily make a difference, because it’s going to read either way, it’s going to be taken into account, either way. So I’d say no, no, that wouldn’t really have an impact.
Alastair Mitchell
I guess related to that I’m working with a firm at the moment that has a really good practice nationwide, but one of the offices is relatively small and they’ve only got four or five matters, but they are really good. A submission with four or five matters – how’s that going to look, when the researcher starts reading that and they sort of come to the end and there’s only four matters on here but they’re very good? And it’s one of those areas where the practitioners tend to focus on a small number of very large matters. How would that be perceived by the reader?
Eleanor Dobson
Obviously, the the nature of the matters themselves are, you know, the sophistication of the work is kind of the key thing that we are looking at. And we do appreciate, you know, maybe for firms that are kind of, like, you know, like you say, focus on less matters, but the bigger issues, that would be something we’d take into consideration when we are ranking. And you know, there are those cases and it varies section to section, obviously. But there are same time, you know, firms who are in Band 1 who are actually taking smaller cases, but loads of them, but then that would have an impact on, you know, maybe bench strength and that kind of thing. And so it’s all of these different factors we take into account. Obviously, we would encourage firms to put as many matters as they can on the submission to give some really broad idea of their work. But we would be comparing the quality of the work to the others within the market as well. So we would take that into consideration if you know, maybe they’re more boutique or something like that.
Alastair Mitchell
Thank you very much. Okay, so, sticking with submission for a moment, a participant asks, what features are you looking at most when reviewing work highlights, for example, do types of deals, scope, deal complexity or innovation matter more than other elements of a deal? I think this might come back to your bench strength, sophistication, those sort of elements that you’re looking for. Perhaps you could tell us about that if that would answer that question.
Matthew Court
Yeah, sure. I mean, I suppose off the bat, it’s worth saying that that would depend on the section, section to section what we’re looking at necessarily might change if for example, in more commercial sections, or kind of more corporate based sections, something like a deal value, a matter value is going to give us more insight into a work highlight than it would on say, a white collar litigation submission, for example. Other than that, I mean, there’s a variety of different things we’re looking at, the client, the complexity of the work, of course, the sort of reputational aspects as well, you know, whether it’s a kind of highly publicised, or sort of written about matter, these are all taken into account. It does really differ section to section though, and so discipline to discipline overall.
Alastair Mitchell
Okay, so I’ve got a question here. For a first time submission to a category, is it okay to go back further than the 12 month reporting period?
Eleanor Dobson
Um, so generally, we would, it’s more encouraged for a firm to submit their work from the last 12 months, especially because if they’re doing that, that makes it more likely that they’ll put in their referees from the last 12 months as well. So we can get a really up to date and accurate kind of understanding of their current practice. So, obviously, you would take on board those matters, but it’s preferable to get ones from the last 12 months, or within the last sort of 18 month period is also acceptable.
Alastair Mitchell
You know, some matters go on for a very long time don’t they, and that sort of question comes up a lot with us. I’ve put this matter in for the last two years, but it’s still going on. If I just change this sentence here, that’s going to bring it up to date. But I’ve been working on it a lot this year. Is it okay to include that, you know, three, four years running, if it’s quite similar?
Eleanor Dobson
Yeah, of course, of course. That’s okay. We, again, if there are any kind of newer matters as well, please do include them. But it is okay to include the same issue as long as you update it. And note those updates and make them very clear, because we do check previous submissions as well. And if it’s just a copy and paste, you know, that’s kind of we prefer to have the updated version, even if not much has changed, you could say, within the year 2022. These sorts of things have been happening, and this is what we’ve been up to on this matter.
Alastair Mitchell
I’m not sure if it refers to the profiles that you can purchase in the interviews, or to the ones in submission, but someone is asking: does the 740 word count maximum for the Chambers profile mean all sections must amount to a total of 740 words maximum, can our Chambers profile exceed 740 words? I think this might be on the sort of commercial or publishing side? So I’m not sure that’s scope for you guys, but do you have anything to say on that?
Matthew Court
I suspect that’s more on the commercial profile side. So that would be better directed to, yeah, perhaps if we pick that up after after this, okay, I can direct it. Whoever asked that question in the right direction. That would be a question for our kind of commercial team that I suspect.
Alastair Mitchell
Funnily enough it’s an anonymous attendee. But yeah, I guess it’d be for your publishing team. Okay, this goes back to the new ability to put in 30 references. So this person is asking is the increasing reference limit, something you think will remain, and could it expand or will it expand to other guides outside the US?
Eleanor Dobson
Yeah, that’s an interesting question. Obviously this is our first year doing it. So it’s more of a trial to see how it goes, you know, obviously, we’ve got expectations and hopes that it will give us a wider understanding of the market and allow, you know, more junior members, as Matt mentioned, and to kind of get a mention, and hopefully increase response rates. As we don’t work on other guides, we can’t say if it’s even kind of something that’s being considered. We’re obviously we’re one of the larger guides for Chambers. So it could be something they’re trialling to see if it’s successful. So that would be my thoughts on it. I think we will probably, again, I can’t say for sure. Let’s see how this year goes. I suspect it might stay. But we can’t make any guarantees at this point.
Alastair Mitchell
So how are you resourcing it? Obviously, there’s a 50% increase in references? Is it the greater use of surveys, more people doing phone calls? How do you expect to sort of manage the additional information?
Eleanor Dobson
Yeah, so again, this goes back to the surveys and the referees, how we’re engaging with them. This will probably be able to happen due to this new survey tool that we’re releasing. But referees will always, as I said earlier, you know, initially be contacted via email, and they will still have the option to have those phone calls. And we’re also editing the nature of our research schedule, in order to accommodate these additional calls and make sure that our researchers can be as thorough as possible with them. So that will vary section to section based on how large sections are and how extensive the call lists are as well.
Alastair Mitchell
Right, thank you very much. Also, references. Sometimes there’s a situation where they can’t, for whatever reason, they’ve got to include references that actually aren’t clients, and they end up putting in more what you might call intermediaries, you know, other attorneys or lawyers at other firms or practices, or other countries, or accountants or other professionals that work on matters that the attorneys work on, you know. What’s the impact of having a list of references that is just largely made up of those intermediaries? Are they as valuable in terms of their commentary as clients?
Matthew Court
So we do encourage, I suppose, as much of the referee list to be comprised as clients as possible, I think, you know, the nature of the directory is that it is primarily geared towards clients and, and those consumers of, of legal services, but there are some sections where that’s not necessarily possible, or that the referee lists do include other intermediaries, as you said, that there, there’s no inherent kind of penalty, as opposed to having those types of relationships on the referee list, you know, as long as we get kind of a, a sense of the department and the work that they’re doing, then it’s obviously totally valid feedback, and it totally gets incorporated into our analysis.
Alastair Mitchell
Thank you. Okay. So sticking with the references. Is there a way for firms to know when the outreach to references has begun, so that they can punch those references and help to get more information over to the research team?
Eleanor Dobson
Yeah, so with regards to that, I would always encourage firms to be consistently checking the research schedule for any updates, because we’re ensuring that our kind of researchers are on it and making it clear when they’re starting research. Generally, you know, there’s there’s no 100% guarantee that as soon as the status changed, the research is hot on it, and right out there with contacting the referees. However, you know, we tried to do it within the first couple of days after they’ve kind of sorted out all the initial, you know, starting points of the research period, if firms would like to know and, you know, they’re curious about when to let their clients know to have their eyes peeled for @chambers.com email, again, there, they can get in touch with the research manager, or the researcher. But I would say as soon as that research schedule status changes, it’s best to just let the clients know as soon as possible.
Alastair Mitchell
Okay. Somebody’s asking, can you confirm, perhaps they missed this, what the new reference limit is?
Matthew Court
Yeah, it’s gone up by 10 to 30 referees per submission this year.
Alastair Mitchell
So another question we get occasionally coming up is, true or false: Chambers has a preference for specialists. If an attorney is active in multiple areas, even if they’re the best in more than one, it is hard for them to break into Band 1. Is that true or false?
Eleanor Dobson
Okay, I’ll take this one. I would personally say that’s false, if you know, as long as someone’s got the quality and the work there that’s, you know, equally comparable to those in Band 1, they will give be given that opportunity and be reviewed thoroughly, you know, if they’re a specialist in a certain area, then if that, in that practice area that will be taken on board, but if they are practising in other areas as well, again, we’d be assessing their work and seeing, you know, which topics they are doing particularly well in and performing as well as the other Band 1s. That would be my response.
Alastair Mitchell
Okay, just generally, is there anything that you’d like firms to do more? Any sort of good practices? What’s the one thing you think, this is great they’ve done that, that’s really helpful. Is there one or two things, that firms should definitely do more, that they’re not doing very much of?
Matthew Court
I suppose chief among the kind of tips on that front might be encouraging kind of referee participation as much as possible. You know, that that is kind of an incredibly important part of, of the research. And that is where we kind of place the most weight when we’re making those ranking decisions. So yeah, efforts on their ends to increase those response rates as much as possible. That’s kind of one of the top tips that that I would offer. I suppose the use of the Chambers, use of the Chambers template, the sort of submission templates is definitely encouraged as well, because our researchers are kind of used to navigating that as a template and know where to go for certain bits of information. So, you know, using that as another top tip. And then if you had any others on that,
Eleanor Dobson
For me, I would also say that, when writing a submission or you know, putting in matters, I generally find it incredibly useful just to have the first kind of sentence as it as a general overview of the matter, and then putting the detail because that’s the kind of the first thing you can see. It’s, it’s less appreciated when firms put in so much detail that it’s almost impossible to read, and we’re trying to get through all of the matters. So, you know, that would be probably my top tip.
Alastair Mitchell
Don’t change the formatting. So that will be the kind of next question as well, the other side of that, is there something they should stop doing? I guess, probably trying to squeeze things too much on one page. Okay, so it looks like the participants have asked all their questions at this stage. I don’t think we’ve got too many more, but that has been super helpful. Is there anything else you’d like to share with the audience, before we sign off?
Eleanor Dobson
Nothing from me, I don’t think this has been really good. And you know, if anyone did have any additional questions, always feel free to reach out to, you know, the relevant research manager for your practice area, you can find it all on kind of the USA page with all of our little profiles down at the bottom of the US part, the Chambers.com website. I don’t know about Matt, did you have anything?
Matthew Court
No, no, I’d agree. I hope it’s been useful. And if anyone wanted anything else clarified, or had any follow ups or anything, then yeah, feel free to get in touch with any of us. But yeah, otherwise. Thanks so much for hearing us out. Yeah, as I said, I hope it was all very useful.
Nell Maudslay
Thank you so much, Eleanor and Matt, that was really interesting and informative. Brilliant. Thank you. We are Maltin PR and that was our Chambers USA webinar. And for people who weren’t here at the beginning. I’m Nell Maudsley, and I’m Head of the Legal PR department and this is Alastair Mitchell, who’s our Directories Associate. And thank you so much for joining us.