How Law Firms Get Ranked: An Insider Look at Benchmark Litigation

[00:00:00] Michael Rafalowich: 

Benchmark has ascended to a position where, if you want to be taken seriously as a litigator, it’s just the place to be. I would say that’s the thing I’m proudest of — having taken it to that position pretty much single-handedly.

[00:00:30] Announcer: 

Welcome to Spill the Ink, a podcast by Reputation Ink, 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.

[00:00:46] Michelle Calcote King: 

Hi, everyone. I’m Michelle Calcote King. I’m your host, and I’m the principal and president of Reputation Ink. We’re a public relations and marketing agency for B2B professional services firms, including law firms. To learn more, go to rep-ink.com. 

So behind every legal ranking is a person reading your submissions, conducting interviews and making judgment calls about who deserves recognition. And for Benchmark Litigation, that person is Michael Rafalowich, managing editor and head of research. This actually isn’t Michael’s first time in our guest seat. We talked to him about the process of ranking law firms a few years ago, and I’m really thrilled to have you back to share his insider perspective on the Benchmark Litigation 2027 cycle. Thanks for joining me, Michael.

[00:01:38] Michael Rafalowich: 

My pleasure. Nice to be back.

[00:01:42] Michael Rafalowich: 

I think it was about five years ago now. And just a minor correction — it’s actually the 2027 research cycle.

[00:01:52] Michelle Calcote King: 

Oh, 2027. You’re right. I’m sorry. Thank you for that correction.

[00:01:54] Michael Rafalowich: 

We always date the content a year ahead because by the time it’s issued — late October — it’s really for a 2027 reader.

[00:02:11] Michelle Calcote King: 

Thank you for that. Well, for people who maybe aren’t as acquainted with Benchmark Litigation, do you mind giving us a quick overview of what Benchmark does and what makes it unique in the space?

[00:02:23] Michael Rafalowich: 

Not at all. In its simplest form, it’s a study focused on identifying and documenting the leading litigators and their respective entities in the U.S. and Canada. What makes it unique is that, to my knowledge, we are the only resource fulfilling this niche. It’s our exclusive beat. It always has been, and I believe we still dominate that field exclusively. We’ve since expanded to the Asia Pacific region, which I actually started quite some time ago but have since turned over to our Hong Kong team. And we recently launched in Europe, which is a bit ironic because the company was for a long time owned by Europeans when the U.K. was part of Europe. I don’t have any direct involvement in that beyond setting the template for the person researching it to follow or riff off of, depending on whatever revisions might be warranted for that market. In its simplest terms, it’s really just a resource and a utility for the business of litigation. We’re assessing the dispute resolution market as a business.

[00:04:03] Michelle Calcote King: 

Fantastic. So you’ve already answered my next question — I was going to ask how Benchmark has evolved over the years. You mentioned the expansion into Europe and Asia. What about this year? Is there anything new?

[00:04:18] Michael Rafalowich: 

There’s a lot new this year. In terms of how the publication has evolved, No. 1, it’s no longer a publication. We’re no longer offering a print version. It’s now exclusively digital content, which has been a long time coming. Some people did appreciate the print version — it was a committed hard copy, a nice-to-have in their reception areas. It was good for bragging rights. As far as I know, it also made a nice doorstop. Unfortunately, it has become too labor intensive and too cost prohibitive to justify satisfying just that minority group. The proper nomenclature now for what we do is an intelligence platform. We’ve expanded the reach — from the U.S. into Canada, and now we’re officially on a global scale. And specific to this year, we’re going to be offering a more granular overview of certain distinct metro areas within certain states.

[00:05:38] Michael Rafalowich: 

The aim is to provide a more fair and balanced platform for firms and their respective personnel to be judged against who are actually their peers, as opposed to the broad, statewide analysis, which might cause them to get overlooked or unfairly lumped into such a big crowd that they don’t really have an opportunity to stand out for dominating a particular local or regional jurisdiction. We’re doing that this year with certain select states. Pennsylvania is one — it’s dominated by two markets, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. In the past, Pittsburgh firms might have been overlooked simply because Philly is just bigger and more dense. North Carolina is another state we’ve expanded into this year, analyzing the Charlotte market versus the Raleigh market, because they are distinct. Oftentimes these players just don’t run into each other, so eliciting peer review on them is more challenging when you’re not taking a deep dive into that specific region.

[00:07:21] Michael Rafalowich: 

It might be hard if the interviews you’re conducting in a particular year are weighted toward firms concentrated in Charlotte — they’re not necessarily going to be able to offer the commentary we need to generate intel on firms in, let’s say, the Raleigh market. We’ve made more of a play this year into expanding that. Texas is one such state; California is the most obvious. That’s actually one we’ve done in the past — we made a go of it for several years until COVID put that on ice. I was no longer able to travel out there for a few years. Without looking at the market up close, it’s very difficult to assess who’s who. You really need to immerse yourself in that market. It’s been a few years now and travel is back on. I was out in San Francisco this past August, and I’m anticipating being in more California markets this year, as well as some of the others I referenced.

[00:08:50] Michael Rafalowich: 

We introduced the metro-level coverage actually last year, and it generated some interest, but not enough to extrapolate on it to the degree we wanted. I feel like this year we’ll have better luck, partly because we started the research period really making a push for this in the webinar we hosted. And this is also unprecedented: we’re starting the year with not one but two other staffers beside myself.

[00:09:26] Michelle Calcote King: 

We have a team!

[00:09:27] Michael Rafalowich: 

We do. And that in itself I feel will facilitate that ambition.

[00:09:36] Michelle Calcote King: 

So what does the more local coverage mean for firms? Does it mean that firms with more local practices might see better rankings? What does that actually mean for them?

[00:09:50] Michael Rafalowich: 

Well, in some cases it’ll help them see rankings at all. If you’re in a state like California or Texas — big, dense, a lot of litigators — and you’re smaller and more concentrated in one particular metro area, the chances are you might have just been overlooked. We just weren’t going that granular before, and we didn’t have the infrastructure and mechanisms to do so. This year we’re really providing a lot of incentive and putting the word out that we are looking to probe deeper into these areas. We want to discover firms that might have been hiding in the shadows of much larger firms in much larger metro areas. When we compiled a California ranking or a Texas ranking, these firms might not have been considered statewide players, so they didn’t warrant a mention. By going more local, we’re providing them with a potential platform to be highlighted, whereas they might not have been before. And if they already are highlighted, it gives them a little more of an edge. That’s the ambition. We stand a better chance of succeeding this year because there’s more incentive to do so, we’ve put out the word, and we’ve got the infrastructure to manage it.

[00:12:00] Michelle Calcote King: 

Great. And with an expanded team, does that mean you’re able to do more in-person interviews? Will firms see you or other people out and about more?

[00:12:17] Michael Rafalowich: 

Hopefully all of the above. There’s obviously a certain level of desk work that has to be done remotely. In the past I’ve had to do it all — the remote work and the front-facing relationship development, the business development, just being the ambassador for the brand in markets that some were repeat visits and others were introductory. With the expansion ambitions I elaborated on earlier, the goal is that I’ll actually be able to get out to these markets and say, ‘Hey, I’m here to learn more about, say, the Austin, Texas market, because I feel like you’re probably not getting the platform — partly because I haven’t been here yet to really discover your story and pound the pavement the way I have in Houston, Chicago, San Francisco and New York.’ Now that I have two actual team members to do more of the remote interviews and build the database, the ambition is that I’ll have a lot more face time.

[00:14:08] Michelle Calcote King: 

That’s great. So this leads me to suspect there is more and more demand from firms. Is that true? How have firms engaged with you? Has that changed over the years? Are you seeing firms valuing being ranked in Benchmark more than they have in the past?

[00:14:31] Michael Rafalowich: 

Yeah, absolutely. We’re overwhelmed. That’s really why we’ve been hamstrung in the past from expanding the way we’re looking to this year. There’s just only so much one person can physically manage. The demand has grown tenfold pretty much since I started. I think that was one of the triggers for expanding into markets that perhaps have been underserved by us in the past — because a lot of times when a questionnaire or inquiry came through from a firm I’d never heard of, there just wasn’t the time or the headcount to do a deeper dive and find out, who is this firm? It was basically: I’ve had numerous conversations with partners in Texas and I’ve never heard of this firm, so we can’t cover them.

[00:15:51] Michelle Calcote King: 

Hmm.

[00:15:51] Michael Rafalowich: 

That’s something we’re looking to correct. Not all of them are going to warrant a mention, but we want to try to soak up more of this demand because it keeps coming. A lot of these requests are going to be from firms you’ve just never heard of before. But the fact that you haven’t heard of them doesn’t mean they’re not legitimate and don’t deserve another look.

[00:16:34] Michelle Calcote King: 

What do you think is driving that demand?

[00:16:39] Michael Rafalowich: 

I just believe Benchmark has ascended to a position where, if you want to be taken seriously as a litigator, it’s just the place to be — something you want to be associated with. I would say that’s the thing I’m proudest of, having taken it to that position pretty much single-handedly. Obviously it takes a village, and I’ve had help over the years from other stakeholders within the company — marketing outreach, web development and so forth. But I’ve been the only constant since day one, the manager of the research and of the whole enterprise from a research and editorial capacity. Over the course of that time, I’ve managed to build this into a utility that’s at the table with any of our larger and more historically entrenched peers. At this point it’s become a very credible source, and the word is out: if you are involved in litigation and disputes, this is the place you want to be.

[00:18:00] Michael Rafalowich: 

Litigation is an interesting business. It’s always going to be there; there’s always going to be a need for it. I view it through the lens of litigators themselves. I feel like there’s a notion that litigators are more appreciated than loved. A lot of times they’re just viewed as the ambulance you always hope you don’t need — but the reality is everybody needs one, and you’re really happy to have it there once you do. Litigators in many cases are the less celebrated personnel within a law firm, which I think just enhances the tenor of the message they’re trying to put out there: ‘We are a vital part of the legal community. You may hope you never need us, but you will.’ A resource like ours that focuses exclusively on giving these people and their respective entities a platform just makes the need for it and the desire to be recognized there that much more pronounced.

[00:20:09] Michelle Calcote King: 

Yeah, that’s great. So let’s get into the submissions process. What are some of the most common questions you hear from firms about how they should do their submissions — or in general, what questions do you get the most?

[00:20:30] Michael Rafalowich: 

The most common question I used to get asked was where we get our information. These days I think that’s largely been answered — they’ve all come to understand where we get our information. So these days the most common question I get is: How do we improve our standing? Is there anything we need to do differently? I’m also getting asked a lot: How do you view us? Is there anything you would suggest to help us improve our image and our standing? And I try to impress upon these people: Look, I’m a reporter, not a lawyer. I’m not necessarily the oracle on how to burnish your image. But they’ll say, ‘Well, you talk to all these people, you have this intel, a knowledge bank almost akin to a consultant.’ And I say, OK, well, that’s a separate conversation if you want to make me a consultant. But at present I’m sitting as a third-party reporter who’s assessing your firm’s standing. In terms of how I can help you improve your image, it can really only be through the canon of Benchmark.

[00:22:30] Michael Rafalowich: 

The question about how to improve your standing — sometimes the firms have done all they can. They’ve given me a very thorough and fulsome submission, gotten everything in on time. Sometimes improving your standing is just out of your hands. It’s up to the market, up to the clients. Do they view you favorably? Are your peers noticing you in the market? Because one side of the story is obviously yours, and the other side is your visibility in the market. All of that plays vital roles in how we report on you and how you get ranked. Sometimes there’s literally nothing you can do to guarantee a better ranking. Sometimes it’s a matter of time, a matter of recruiting, a matter of market perception, a matter of your achievements taking time to reverberate out to the market.

[00:23:39] Michael Rafalowich: 

I would say that’s probably the biggest question I get asked these days: What should I be doing differently? Is there anything with our questionnaire that could have been done differently? And very often the answer is no — the firms have done everything fine. Sometimes they get it in a little bit late, which gives it less time to work for them. But nine times out of 10, there’s nothing someone’s doing wrong with their questionnaire.

[00:24:12] Michelle Calcote King: 

Well, so you said most of the time they aren’t doing anything wrong — but are there mistakes you often see that are easy to improve? What are those common mistakes firms could fix?

[00:24:35] Michael Rafalowich: 

A common one — actually it’s not that common anymore, but it’s one I’ve definitely observed in the past, which leads to awkwardness — is that for political reasons or internal dynamics, firms will tell us about a representative case and list individuals as the leads who are not really the leads. Their name appears at the top of the brief for political or client-related reasons, but the actual legwork — lead arguments, etc. — was done by other individuals. The way I sometimes find out is a bit awkward: you’re having a conversation with another member of the team and you mention, ‘I see you were part of the team on this case, led by so-and-so,’ and they’ll say, ‘Well, actually no, I was the lead on that. It’s just firm policy to put that person as the lead.’ My advice is always: don’t do that if at all possible. I have no choice but to take your word as gospel when you send that kind of information. I don’t have the time, and I just have no way of second-guessing whether the content you’re putting there is actually accurate.

[00:27:02] Michael Rafalowich: 

The other phenomenon I’ve witnessed a lot — which isn’t necessarily a mistake, it’s just an unrealistic approach — is that firms will basically list their entire team as being worthy of coverage. Sometimes that can be between 50 and 100 individuals. I can guarantee you: take the biggest national firm in the country — they do not have 100 members of their litigation staff referenced by us. It’s just an unrealistic expectation. But these people who are fulfilling these submissions are just covering their bases. They’re saying, ‘I put everybody in. Whoever Benchmark chose to cover and not cover, that’s on them.’ But you’ll be less disappointed if you calibrate your expectations from the get-go. You might also save yourself some work, depending on how much of an administrative burden it is to fulfill all those names. If you’re having to tie those names to achievements throughout the questionnaire or come up with spin content for each one, you could be saving yourself a whole lot of hassle by doing a more honest internal assessment and saying: Here’s who we view as our most credible players this year. You’ve got to be realistic.

[00:29:25] Michael Rafalowich: 

Like I said, that’s not necessarily an error — it’s a way of letting yourself off the hook and passing the buck to us. But at the end of the day, you have to be realistic with your expectations of the outcome. The only other error I’ve witnessed is this: if something’s confidential, whether wholly or partly, you need to relay that to us. Otherwise we view it as fair game to reference. It’s led to a couple of hot-mess situations where we publish something and then get contacted by someone at the firm who says it was supposed to be confidential. To me, that is the one genuine mistake that can be made. I advise all staff of this, and it’s the very first thing I look for: just look for the confidentiality field. If it’s populated, when in doubt, leave it out. But sometimes the confidentiality question is marked “no — it’s not confidential, it’s public.” That’s the assumption we go with. Then we’ll publish it, and sometimes it actually turns out to be a client sensitivity issue. There’ll be a panicked email or call, and they’ll say it was supposed to be confidential. I’ll check, and it turns out it wasn’t marked confidential. So the onus is on them to do that. That is the other genuine mistake — doesn’t happen often, but it does happen, and it’s definitely egg on the face for all involved.

[00:32:03] Michelle Calcote King: 

So are there characteristics of a great submission? Things like number of cases listed, how they’re written, the type of information included? Is there anything that really stands out as making a well-done submission?

[00:32:28] Michael Rafalowich: 

It’s not a numbers game, and I feel that’s something I need to emphasize, because I think a lot of people still view it that way — like, if we just flood them with content it’s going to speak to how active and visible we are. That’s not really it. Obviously you want to make it fulsome and comprehensive enough to speak to the breadth of practices associated with various practitioners, and you do want to illustrate how involved they are. But the smarter and more effective way to go about it — so that it makes more of an impact — is to take what you would view as your banner matters for the year and put them in the poll position. Prioritize all the way down. Focus on the individuals who are leading them. Be honest — just tell the truth. Let us know who’s on the team, but assign the lead partners accordingly.

[00:33:50] Michael Rafalowich: 

When you get into the summary of what actually transpired, be clear. I would avoid too much legal jargon. I’ve had the advantage of sitting adjacent to this industry for a long time, so I know the nomenclature, but another member of the staff might not. None of us are lawyers — we’re all journalists, and we’re trying to do this fast. When submissions come in on the due date, we’re flooded for the next week, reviewing these expeditiously. The less jargon-heavy and technical content we have to wade through to figure out exactly what’s happening, the better. The quickest way from Point A to Point B is a straight line. Avoid the spin, avoid the puffery — we don’t need it. And let us know the outcome, including if it was not favorable. There’s nothing wrong with providing us information on losses if it speaks to the gravity of the case. You’re not going to win everyone, but it might have been a really newsworthy matter and you want to highlight it.

[00:35:31] Michelle Calcote King: 

So we’ve talked about submissions, but let’s talk about interviews. How do you determine who gets interviewed?

[00:35:44] Michael Rafalowich: 

It’s first come, first served — so you’ve got to get your booking in early. There’s going to come a point in the year — historically when the questionnaires are due, so late April, May, June — when we’re booked wall to wall every day. Getting in earlier is more advantageous. We have a little more flexibility right now. And even if you want to schedule something a month or two away, get it on lockdown now — just say we want to look at X, Y, Z dates.

[00:36:44] Michael Rafalowich: 

It goes through me or one of the staff, depending on our availability.

[00:36:49] Michelle Calcote King: 

So just request an interview and do that early in the process?

[00:36:52] Michael Rafalowich: 

Yes. The ones who are going to get prioritized are the ones who prioritize booking it. Of course, on our end, we’re going to proactively prioritize certain firms that are more of a target for us. This particular year we’re going to be proactively reaching out to firms in those metro areas we’re looking to diversify into. And there are just certain firms of real historical importance to us that we’re going to proactively contact as well. New York obviously has an advantage just because that’s where we’re based, so we have the ability to regularly interface with these people with a minimum of travel arrangements. Also, calibrate your expectations here: if you book a certain date and time and then you’re not able to make it — called out of town, a client meeting, you get sick, etc. — a reschedule is not always guaranteed. It really depends on our availability.

[00:38:26] Michelle Calcote King: 

Tell me about those interview meetings. Is there anything you’d advise firms in terms of who should be in the meeting, how they should prepare?

[00:38:40] Michael Rafalowich: 

Who should be in the meeting? Partners exclusively — and the ones you feel really stand a chance of being recognized by Benchmark. These could be individuals who are already established partners being covered by Benchmark and continue to earn their keep. But it should also include up-and-comers who may not be recognized by us yet but you really feel deserve the coverage. All of that will speak to a level of succession and generational health, as it were. I can’t really tell you who to invite and who not to, but those are the guidelines I’d advise adhering to. If you’re going to set up an interview with someone who is one of your more marginal players — someone you can’t say with confidence should be recognized by us — I wouldn’t waste their time or ours. This is the same thing as fulfilling your questionnaire: you want to exercise a bit of judiciousness and selectivity.

[00:40:47] Michelle Calcote King: 

What are you trying to accomplish in those meetings? Are you taking the submission they’ve provided and asking clarifying questions, or what do you aim to achieve beyond what’s in the submission?

[00:41:07] Michael Rafalowich: 

The interviews are not necessarily always tied to the submission. The submission gives us everything we need in a flat, static data format — so if we were just talking about the submission, we don’t really need to interview them. We might riff off it a little bit, but we’re not going to get into the weeds of the submission when interviewing partners. What we’re really looking for is intel we can’t get from that questionnaire — their commentary on their practice as a whole, developments this year versus last year. This is why we conduct the interview process on a yearly basis: the story might have changed and we want to assess those changes. We’re looking at who we’re meeting with year to year. Is it the same team as last year, or are there new faces, new recruits? Are there new practices you’re trying to develop? We wouldn’t necessarily get that from a questionnaire.

[00:42:40] Michael Rafalowich: 

The peer review is also a critical component. Partners can expect us to seek that satisfaction in the interview. Honestly, if they don’t want to participate in peer review, we have the right to decline to interview them — because it is going to be expected of them to speak on their peers, on market trends and phenomena, on how certain firms and practitioners are being affected. We want their insight on who they’re regularly interacting with, who they know reputationally, who they’ve seen across from them in a case. All of that is crucial to maintaining the integrity of the content we develop.

[00:43:30] Michael Rafalowich: 

And of course, throughout the course of the interviews, it’s really about engaging — about Benchmark not just being an email across their desk that they can easily dismiss. If we make a point of lining up a video interview or meeting in person, we’re showing that we are interested. We’re here to actually get to know you, and we want you to get to know us. That relationship building is also a critical component. I couldn’t have developed Benchmark to what it is right now just by sending emails from my desk. I’m not of the world of litigation — I’m around it all the time, but I’m not of it. In order to learn it from the ground up, which is what I had to do when I first started, I had no choice but to get out there and meet these people and soak up every piece of intel I could extract from them like a sponge. We continue to do that. I’m never going to know everything; I’m never going to know everybody. It’s a consistently evolving process, and the meetings are about capturing that evolution.

[00:45:28] Michelle Calcote King: 

To do a 360 here — you guys obviously invest a lot of human capital and place a lot of emphasis on those in-person interviews. What about AI? Are you using AI at all? Do you have any plans to implement more AI in your review and research process?

[00:46:01] Michael Rafalowich: 

There’s no dodging that bullet. In terms of how we’re using AI, the short answer is we’re not using it at present — not in any real measurable form. I know that’s not the sexy answer, but it’s the real one. No one is immune to it, right? If I want to know about a particular case or a particular lawyer who might be newsworthy, you do a Google search and you get your AI summary right there at the top of the screen. So I use it for that, just like I do with every other Google search. But I don’t take it as gospel. It’s a starting point, just a launching pad. From there I conduct my own research.

[00:47:09] Michael Rafalowich: 

I think firms have really come to value the human judgment and analysis that we provide. Yes, we are data-driven, but at the end of the day we’re not statisticians — we’re journalists. If we were doing what we do through AI, I’m not sure what purpose we’d really serve. There are people who have asked me, ‘Couldn’t you just use AI to figure out how many cases we’ve been involved in?’ And I guess you could, from a quantifiable standpoint. But that’s not going to provide you with the kind of candid peer review and client review that we get through inquiry and research. I feel like that has really become the value add. The partners we speak with really do want to know what their peers and clients are saying about them. I get that through off-the-record chats. AI can do many things, but it can’t generate those candid quotes. In this particular industry, that’s what people have come to rely on Benchmark for. They know that I get out there, they’ve seen me or spoken with me, they know my name — so they know this content is real. It’s coming from the street. That’s the value proposition.

[00:49:07] Michael Rafalowich: 

How I would think about AI is to turn the question back on the firms: How are you using it? Are you using it? How do you feel it’s affecting your industry? Obviously there are concerns, but there’s promise there as well. It can facilitate a lot of really routine tasks that many in the field would rather not be spending their precious time on. We’ve already been querying firms about novel enhancements they’ve put into place to improve efficiency and client accountability through AI. I definitely feel AI has its place in that field. In the conversations I’ve had with in-house counsel — and I say “conversations,” but these are all written answers they provide me — they’re looking for greater accountability, greater transparency with billing, greater transparency in terms of human capital employed, headcount. The demands are there from clients to employ AI more to facilitate some of these really routine, time-consuming tasks that probably take up a lot of headcount at law firms — headcount the client has to pay for.

[00:50:50] Michael Rafalowich: 

In terms of how we’re thinking about AI and how we’re using it — we’re really turning it back on the lawyers and asking: How are you using it? How are you benefiting from it? What concerns do you have? We take that data and we’ve been storing it, because this is the type of thing where if Benchmark put together a speaking panel for leaders in the industry to discuss, we might want to call upon a particular practitioner who put forth a novel illustration of how they’re employing AI to improve efficiency and client accountability. But in terms of Benchmark itself, we’re still old-fashioned journalism.

[00:51:35] Michelle Calcote King: 

Focused just on that human connection. I love it.

[00:51:38] Michelle Calcote King: 

You’ve given me a lot of information. Is there anything I haven’t asked — I always like to ask this as my last question — that you think is important for firms to understand about this cycle or about Benchmark in general?

[00:51:59] Michael Rafalowich: 

I’m trying to think. Something that’s worth noting — if there’s any sort of ‘bee in the bonnet’ about the legal rankings business — is that it is a business. We’ve got to make some bread in order to keep the lights on and pay my princely salary and facilitate my lavish lifestyle.

[00:52:30] Michael Rafalowich: 

Obviously no shortage of sarcasm there. But the reality is, it is a business and we do need to keep our lights on in order to keep going. If you view Benchmark as something valuable, just know we have people to answer to above us who are all about the numbers. There is a commercial team within Benchmark, as there is within any organization, that’s responsible for generating revenue. However, there is a perception that plagues this industry — that the commercial side and the editorial side are linked, and that my decisions are going to be based upon who’s dropping coin on us. The reality is the reverse: it’s completely the opposite of pay-to-play. I think by this point we’ve proven this several times over. These days those perceptions don’t crop up as much, but they do still linger occasionally. I think more and more they’ve just become forms of sour grapes from skeptics who work for firms that may have been overlooked by us for one reason or another.

[00:54:21] Michael Rafalowich: 

Sometimes the sour grapes is not without justification. Like I said, we’re looking to perhaps address that this year with more personnel and a more granular probe into the jurisdictions. If we overlook something, we always try to address it as close to real time as we can. But there’s always going to be the notion out there that what we do is tied to who sponsors us. And it simply is not the case. I understand why that perception exists. There are certainly some shady outfits out there that do indeed fit the pay-to-play description. But I would think it would be easy enough to reveal who these fly-by-night operations are because of how sloppy and indiscriminate some of them are. Some of them have actually been exposed — speaking of AI — as having directly appropriated my work. But they got the data wrong, just because of sloppy data matching. They’ll take someone I’ve identified as one of our top securities lawyers and say, ‘Congratulations, you’ve won an award for Antitrust Partner of the Year.’ They didn’t match the practice areas. That doesn’t paint a very flattering picture of the whole industry.

[00:56:20] Michael Rafalowich: 

Depending on how much of a cynic you are, they might misunderstand Benchmark as being among these outfits — I would hope not, these days. I would hope by this point we’ve managed to quash that perception and distinguish ourselves as being apart from that pack. If there’s any misconception about Benchmark and the whole industry, it’s that we are somehow influenced by or tied to the commercial aspect. In fact, like I said, we work in reverse. I do my job and then, whatever content I turn over to our commercial team, whatever happens with it is what happens with it. I don’t know who’s going to be sponsoring us and who isn’t. I don’t know that until the end of the cycle, when I get asked to do special features. There is certain content that is clearly paid content, and that is only awarded to sponsors. Only then — when I get asked to fulfill one of those — does it become obvious to me that this entity came in and financially sponsored us. I don’t know that on the front end.

[00:58:10] Michael Rafalowich: 

I guess the only other misconception about Benchmark is that we’re kind of like a Chambers-type operation. The reality is, I wish we were as well staffed as them. I definitely have staff envy there without question. I don’t think people realize just how lean the Benchmark staff is. When I say we’ve got two individuals now on staff besides me, that’s an unprecedented development. I literally feel like we actually have something of a team this year — but obviously it’s a fraction of what else is out there being offered by much larger organizations with a lot more infrastructure and global reach. So that’s a misconception as well.

[00:59:18] Michelle Calcote King: 

Congratulations on getting that extra team and for really achieving the reputation that you have. Thank you for joining me. We have been talking to Michael Rafalowich of Benchmark Litigation. Am I pronouncing that correctly?

[00:59:33] Michael Rafalowich: 

You are indeed.

[00:59:34] Michelle Calcote King: 

Oh, good. Thank you so much for your time today.

[00:59:38] Michael Rafalowich: 

Thank you. And by the way, thank you for enhancing my reputation through this. When I do what I do, I publish and I don’t know where it goes or how it’s working until I get out there and people tell me — and they give me their testimonials and a platform like this. I appreciate that.

[01:00:07] Michelle Calcote King: 

Well, we appreciate it. Thank you.

[01:00:08] Michael Rafalowich: 

My pleasure.

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