Inside Legal 500: Submission Strategy and AI’s Growing Role in Firm Selection

[00:00:00] 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 today we continue our dive into the top awards and rankings programs across the legal industry with Legal 500. So how is one of the most established programs evolving in 2026? And what does that mean for your submission? To unpack everything around Legal 500, I’m happy to introduce Barnaby Merrill, the US editor at Legal 500. Welcome, Barnaby.

[00:00:41] Barnaby Merrill: Thanks for having me. Great to be here.

[00:00:42] Michelle Calcote King: Yeah. I’m excited to chat with you. So let’s frame the conversation — if you can give us an overview of what Legal 500 does and what makes it unique in the legal ranking space.

[00:00:54] Barnaby Merrill: Yeah, absolutely. Legal 500 — we see ourselves as the original client’s guide to law firms, first of its kind. And we are a data-driven, AI-optimized research platform benchmarking firms and connecting providers and users of legal services in more than 100 countries worldwide. Chances are you’ve heard of us. Our research and data is trusted and relied upon by corporate clients globally — it’s the central part of the process, both of instructing law firms with new mandates and also when reviewing existing mandates or panels.

[00:01:28] Michelle Calcote King: Wonderful.

[00:01:29] Barnaby Merrill: And what makes us unique is the comprehensive research process. We’ve got a vast proprietary data set of client-supplied data, which is really unrivaled in the market.

[00:01:43] Michelle Calcote King: Great. Well, before we get into what’s new, I’d love to just touch on the basics of submissions — because our audience is a lot of legal marketers and they’re the ones in charge of putting these submissions together. So what are some of the most common questions you get about the submissions process?

[00:02:03] Barnaby Merrill: It’s a great question. There are quite a few. I think the main two cover the two main things that we ask for. As many people tuning into this will be familiar — and if you aren’t, you’re welcome, I’ll let you know — we ask for matter highlights: descriptions of work done for key clients, market-leading, most important mandates that you’ve handled for your most important clients. And we also ask for client referees. There are some differences between the different rankings we do, which we can get into a bit later. But the most common questions I get: No. 1 is, what kind of information do you need about the work we do for clients, and how important are the referees?

The first one, on the matter side — what we are really driven by at Legal 500 in terms of the expertise-led firm and lawyer rankings is a very succinct description of: Who is the client? What is the matter? Why was it important? And what was the firm’s role in it? Firms are very excited to tell us the entire story of their relationship with a client — how they won them back in the early 2000s and worked with them since. That’s great. But in terms of an actionable decision for us, we’d like to know: What were you doing for them this time? Why was it interesting? And what exactly was it that you did — perhaps compared to co-counsel or other firms involved in the process? Whether you’re on the buy side or sell side of a deal, what your role was in litigation, whether you were in trial — that kind of thing.

And then in terms of referees, I think the most common question we get is how many of our referees have responded. We always like to reassure firms that referee feedback is a really important part of our process, and it gives us huge amounts of insight into what clients want, what they’re saying, what they want from their corporate counsel. But we very much understand that clients are incredibly busy. They may not respond quite within the timeframes you want, and we don’t ever see a delay in response from a client as a sign that a firm isn’t doing a good job. A firm would never suffer in a ranking related to the sheer number of responses. With that said, tailored, really interesting, positive client feedback can do wonders for a firm’s ranking or an individual’s ranking as well. But I always like to reassure people that it’s really important — but we are never going to make a decision purely based on testimonials from clients.

[00:04:56] Michelle Calcote King: Is there anything firms can do to help that referee process along — like reminding them that you’re going to reach out, anything like that?

[00:05:07] Barnaby Merrill: Yeah, absolutely. That is the main thing. Do remind your clients that we are going to be in touch. We aim to make firms aware a few days in advance of each round of referee outreach. Given that they’re your clients, you are going to have the best upfront relationship with them. Give them a nudge, ask them if they’ve checked in. We have the ability — without going too much into sales mode — for subscribing firms to track referee responses and add additional ones. There’s also a self-service link that can be circulated to clients if things change. So absolutely be on top of that. We’ll take the lead — we’ll be sending out the survey via email — but we do aim to make firms aware. By all means have a parallel process alongside ours so your clients are aware and they’re not feeling too blindsided or overwhelmed. They might check their spam folder — happens all the time, we get it, not a problem.

[00:06:07] Michelle Calcote King: Yeah. And going back to the matter details — do you have any tips in terms of content length, number of matters, that kind of thing? Is there anything that really stands out to you in terms of a good submission?

[00:06:24] Barnaby Merrill: I’ll answer this in the context of the Legal 500 national ranking submission — we recently finished research on that, and it’s coming out in June. That’s our most established product. We can talk about some of the new ones and how they might differ later. We ask for up to 20 matters, and as I touched on earlier, we obviously don’t want a single line just saying we represented X client in Y. What we’d like is a few crisp sentences: We represented X client in Y case. We were chosen for this case because of our long relationship and our expertise in X, Y, Z. This is what happened, or this is what’s happening. This is what’s happened since last year, if it’s an ongoing case. We’ve handled this element and that element, which is a great reflection of our particular expertise in whatever the case relates to. You could talk a little bit about how much it might be worth or your outlook on it, but we don’t need to see paragraphs and paragraphs — it becomes a bit noisy. And I don’t think it’s the most efficient use of the firm’s time. We completely appreciate that this is quite a lot of work on the firm’s side, so make it as easy on yourselves as possible: Who was the client? What were you doing? Why exactly was it important or relevant to the client? And what did you perhaps do that you feel other firms couldn’t have offered in this case?

[00:07:53] Michelle Calcote King: Got it. So narrow it down, keep it succinct, and be focused on the information that you provide.

[Barnaby Merrill:] Exactly.

[00:08:10] Michelle Calcote King: Is there anything that you think is misunderstood about the process for Legal 500?

[00:08:10] Barnaby Merrill: I think certainly my referee point — again, we really value client feedback, and there’s a lot of interesting stuff we learn about the market from it that we can share. But it doesn’t inform the majority of a ranking decision; that is very much expertise-led. And as I said, we would never make a decision purely informed by client feedback — or lack thereof, which is the most common concern firms understandably have.

I think another misconception — and this isn’t unique to Legal 500, I think it’s across the rankings and market analysis space broadly — is the idea that there’s a bit of a slow roll for getting into the rankings. There are a number of firms that have been ranked with Legal 500 for many years, and there are some firms that may be newly formed — boutiques that have recently formed as breakoffs from existing firms, or established firms that may have new departments or made a number of lateral hires, or perhaps for whatever reason just haven’t engaged with the research process but have been in the market for years. It hurts my feelings a bit, but I do understand. And you’re always welcome to get in touch if you want to submit.

But the big factor here is: We’re not just going to put you in the lowest possible tier if you’ve given a submission that suggests that you could be higher up. Particularly where teams are new, we want to see how things evolve. There may be a degree of letting things develop — whether it’s lateral moves bedding in, or whether a new firm is able to deliver on its initial promise. But certainly if a firm shows up and is effectively saying, we’re doing this work, we’ve been doing it for a long time, and here is some really good evidence of exactly what we’re doing — there’s absolutely no reason why your position in the market can’t be quite quickly reflected by Legal 500. We try to be as responsive as we can to the realities of the market and the evidence available to us, without overreacting or underreacting.

[00:10:20] Michelle Calcote King: Got it. What sort of other research outside of the submissions does your team do? Do they really focus on those submissions and referees, or is there other research your researchers are doing?

[00:10:35] Barnaby Merrill: It’s a great question. The interview is the other main thing we do. We’ve got a team — more than 150 across our researchers, technologists, data analysts and journalists. We conduct a number of interviews — and we’ll talk about this more when we come on to some of our newer rankings. We want to speak to practice heads and active partners within law firms about the submissions, about the work.

[00:11:17] Michelle Calcote King: Mm-hmm.

[00:11:17] Barnaby Merrill: That written evidence is really useful and forms the backbone of a ranking. But if we can get some time with the lawyers to really get to grips with the practice — how things have developed, notable trends in the market, the kinds of things you can’t always get across in a written submission — really understand from the lawyers themselves their particular role in a case, or winning a new client, as well as getting feedback on the wider market and the accuracy of our rankings year on year — that can give us really key additional information. That can definitely make a big difference to a firm’s ranking. Especially when a firm’s submission puts them on the borderline between staying where they are and maybe going up a tier — having a really good, constructive, open conversation with the researcher makes a huge difference. Because once you have a frame of reference of: Oh yeah, things are going really well for that practice, they gained all these new clients, I had a great conversation with a couple of the key partners there, they’re really positive, they shared loads of information about where they’re going — it just really completes that picture and can help make that final difference between staying where you are, going up, or coming into the rankings for the first time.

We certainly do look at wider context — things that are happening in the legal press, notable developments. When firms make hires within or outside of our research processes, we also try to keep on top of that. Our team works really hard to keep themselves informed on changes in legislation and regulation in various jurisdictions they’re covering.

[00:12:57] Michelle Calcote King: Great. And can any firm get an interview? How do you select which firms to interview?

[00:13:04] Barnaby Merrill: Absolutely. We always say be as proactive as possible. The earlier you get in touch with us saying, we’ve submitted for the first time this year, or we haven’t spoken to you in a few years and we’d really love to speak to you — that’s the best way of maximizing your chances. Given the number of submissions we get, we can’t guarantee that everyone will get an interview, but we’ll certainly do our level best. The earlier in the process you proactively reach out to that researcher — contact details are online — the better. If it comes in the first week, the answer is always going to be yes.

[00:13:38] Michelle Calcote King: Before we move on to what’s new — what about feedback? So a firm doesn’t get the ranking they want and they want to understand it. Do you provide feedback?

[00:13:51] Barnaby Merrill: We will provide a limited steer broadly on what informed a ranking decision. A lot of the feedback is available in more detail through some of our commercial products. We’ve got things like submission analysis reports that will give a bit more data — expose a bit more of our decision-making in terms of where the firm measured up: its client base, the value and scale of the work, the complexity of the work, the firm’s broad trajectory in recent years.

[00:14:25] Michelle Calcote King: OK. So that’s a paid feature that firms can take advantage of if they’re wanting to really analyze what they’re doing right, what they’re doing wrong in their submissions — they can pay for that kind of detail.

[00:14:37] Barnaby Merrill: Yeah, it’s a commercial consideration — definitely not my wheelhouse — but it certainly exists, and the research team very heavily contributes to and informs those products. So we have a lot of information about what the research team has unearthed about the firm.

[00:14:52] Michelle Calcote King: Got it. OK. Well, let’s talk about what’s new.

[00:14:57] Barnaby Merrill: I think it’s less what’s new this year and more what’s been new the last couple of years — that’s the best way of answering the question. We are in the second year now of the US Elite rankings, which are a slightly different approach for Legal 500 in the US. They are, first of all, a partner-led ranking — a tiered ranking primarily of attorneys rather than firms, with some limited recognition of firms. And it’s on a more granular, jurisdictional basis in terms of cities, states or sometimes regions.

We first launched this in early 2025. We released the 2025 editions covering diverse jurisdictions including New York, Boston, Chicago, L.A., San Francisco, Missouri and Atlanta. And that’s only scaled up with the 2026 edition. We released the first 2026 edition last week, and that covered six jurisdictions across the Northeast: New York, Boston, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Connecticut and New England. It’s a chance for firms that are still doing really high-quality work for really high-quality clients, but perhaps have more of a regional or local focus — or are a bit more in the midmarket in terms of their client base or size — to shine. It gives those lawyers the recognition they deserve.

We speak to clients all the time and we know they are interested in having a wider menu of options for their counsel. Of course there are times they’re going to be using Big Law, but there are times where they might be interested in a different option. The US Elite rankings are a chance to find that counsel — and to actually know the lawyer, too. We know people really value a partner-led approach in a lot of cases. So you can actually find the lawyers in specific jurisdictions who know how things work locally, or who are just doing some fantastic work that wouldn’t previously have been recognized by an all-in-one nationwide approach.

So that’s the big story of what’s happening with Legal 500 in the US right now. Those rankings are continuing, and we have research ongoing in a number of markets. If you are interested in getting involved, please get in touch — you can always email me or connect with me on LinkedIn and I can help with that. We’re starting research soon on four jurisdictions across Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska — the northern Great Plains. We really are trying to go everywhere.

[00:18:00] Michelle Calcote King: Great. And is there anything different in terms of best practices for the submission for the Elite versus the traditional rankings?

[00:18:12] Barnaby Merrill: We take a slightly different approach with the US Elite, where we are very keen to get submissions from firms, but the main engagement point for now is an interview.

[00:18:22] Michelle Calcote King: Mm-hmm.

[00:18:23] Barnaby Merrill: Many of the firms in the US Elite hadn’t previously taken part in Legal 500 research, and we’re very happy that a huge number of firms have now got involved through this initiative. What the researchers will be doing is proactively reaching out to attorneys, but we’re also very happy to have proactive outreach from firms.

[00:18:41] Michelle Calcote King: Mm-hmm.

[00:18:42] Barnaby Merrill: We want to spend 30 to 45 minutes with an individual partner talking about their practice and the rankings. So the key input we have is the team having hundreds — thousands — of conversations with partners across the US about their careers, what led them to the practice they have today, notable trends, notable cases, how they approach matters, all that kind of thing. And we want to make it as easy as possible. So it’s that 30- to 45-minute interview — I know of some that have gone on a bit longer when partners have had time, which has been really great — and that’s supplemented by a very short submission: no more than three to five matters, and very little biographical information because we’ve gotten a lot of that from the interview.

[00:19:34] Michelle Calcote King: OK. What about referees for the Elite rankings?

[00:19:39] Barnaby Merrill: Watch this space. In the initial rounds of research, we haven’t yet been collecting referee data, but we will be rolling this out very soon.

[00:19:48] Michelle Calcote King: OK.

[00:19:49] Barnaby Merrill: We’re very excited about that. We think it’s going to add another layer of data, another layer of information for us to make these decisions.

[00:19:57] Michelle Calcote King: Got it. But it’s partner-focused — so it’s not about the firm, it’s about the individual partners.

[Barnaby Merrill:] That’s right.

[Michelle Calcote King:] It’s a shorter submission, fewer matters required, and it’s more focused on specific regions rather than a nationwide approach.

[00:20:14] Barnaby Merrill: Yeah. And I just want to reiterate that it’s very interview-led. We want to speak to as many lawyers as possible, and that very much is the idea behind it.

[00:20:23] Michelle Calcote King: That was very helpful. Is there anything else about the Elite rankings that you think is important for viewers to understand that we didn’t touch on?

[00:20:34] Barnaby Merrill: I think that largely covers it. I’ll just reiterate: We are very keen for firms to get involved. If you’re hearing about this for the first time, it’s never too late — we can be very flexible. We’ve got research ongoing in a number of markets. We’re also very keen to consider firms for the national coverage too. So whether it’s the Elite or the national coverage, we really are in growth mode in terms of featuring more firms and exposing more lawyers to recognition. Do get in touch with me if you are interested.

[00:21:10] Michelle Calcote King: Great. Well, before we wrap up, I’d love to hear a bit about the value of rankings to firms’ growth goals and how you see them impacting how clients assess firms.

[00:21:27] Barnaby Merrill: It’s a really good question, and it is something that gets discussed a lot by the legal marketing community — and I entirely understand the fatigue. The rankings, first and foremost, are a chance for firms and lawyers to celebrate third-party recognition. It’s an assessment outside of their own marketing efforts where you can put it in front of clients and say, don’t just take it from us — a rigorous third-party research process informed by a number of different data points has said that we are one of the best in the business for this type of work.

But I think what Legal 500 can also do is tell a story with data about the trajectory of firms. Something I am really passionate about is that question of: Where is your firm going to be in 10 or 15 years? We’ve seen in the past 25 years or so a number of really established firms, in some cases, merge or even cease to exist — and there are a number of reasons behind that. Firms that have rocketed up in the revenue charts or in the rankings, firms that perhaps have declined a bit, firms that have stayed the same — what we can offer is data about year-on-year performance in the rankings: what clients had to say about you, how satisfied they were with your service. We offer a number of client satisfaction accolades where we can explain exactly what your clients are saying about you.

[00:23:07] Michelle Calcote King: Mm-hmm.

[00:23:07] Barnaby Merrill: We can tell a story year on year about customer experience and where clients are looking to spend their money — what areas they’re looking to invest in, the types of firms they want to work with, the types of service they want to receive. And I think that’s really invaluable strategic data. Obviously the recognitions and the rankings are fantastic and our main export, and it’s great every year — or in this case for the US Elite, every two months — to see LinkedIn full of lawyers and firms celebrating their accolades. That’s great. But under the hood of that, what we can share with firms is a lot more in terms of the direction they’re going. We’re a bit concerned that we’ve been treading water seemingly for a few years — why is that? And sometimes the answer is: Clients aren’t actually 100% happy with this, but if you were to reorient and offer something more in this direction, that would probably help you. Or sometimes it’s just that it’s been tough for clients across the board — that’s just the reality of the market.

I think it very much is about looking a layer below just the headline results. What’s that saying in terms of a firm’s story or a firm’s journey?

[00:24:24] Michelle Calcote King: Yeah. I’d love to tap into that a little bit. What trends are you seeing from clients in terms of what they’re looking for from their firms or how they’re selecting firms?

[00:24:40] Barnaby Merrill: I think one of the key headline stories is that clients are more and more willing — perhaps more interested — in shopping around. It absolutely still remains the case that companies are willing to give their entire legal spend to one firm, especially if they’ve got an established relationship and know the firm can do the job. But regardless of the industry, firms are looking for sometimes a better value proposition or an alternative value proposition. They’re looking for local jurisdictional knowledge. If you’re a client in New York looking to make an investment in North Carolina or Texas, you might be looking for a firm that has more of a footprint in that area. Not every firm has statewide or nationwide coverage. Perhaps you’re looking for someone for a specific thing, or looking to establish a referral relationship as a law firm as well. So that’s one big factor — people are increasingly interested in seeing what the options are out there. Sometimes that’s down to cost; sometimes it’s down to quality of service.

And I think the other big one, especially in an era of massively increasing revenue and increasing consolidation at the top of the US legal market, is a partner-led approach. Firms have got to have leverage, especially at the top of the market when you’re working on massive deals.

[00:26:16] Barnaby Merrill: But there are times where clients are increasingly telling us that they want — even if they’re not going to be spending all their time with a partner — responsiveness. They want to feel as though they’re being listened to and looked after, whether it’s by the partners or by juniors. They want to see that the juniors they’re spending a lot of time working with are empowered to actually handle meaningful parts of cases. Because ultimately, thinking about that long-term question again: You are working with one partner who is your relationship partner. In 15 to 20 years, they might be at a different firm. They won’t be practicing anymore. And some of those associates, senior associates, will be the next relationship partner. Clients want to see that succession planning — that trust and capability at all levels. Increasingly, that’s something clients will tell us they want to see: that everyone they’re working with is trusted and able to do major parts of the work.

[00:27:20] Michelle Calcote King: Yeah. And the last thing I’d love to ask about is AI. Are you finding — or do you have any early indications — that these rankings are impacting the answers that AI is giving prospective clients in terms of who they surface and recommend?

[00:27:46] Barnaby Merrill: Big time. At the start I said Legal 500 is AI-optimized, and we absolutely are. You talk about SEO — I think AIO is another big part of that now. If you put in, is Kirkland a good law firm? Obviously the answer is yes, but the AI summary will say: Absolutely — Legal 500 has them ranked here, here and here. We are really alive to the opportunity presented by the rise of AI summaries to inform that. Our website is very much designed to be optimized for AI as much as possible.

[00:28:24] Michelle Calcote King: Great. So for firms listening who want to make the most out of this year’s cycle — whether they’re first-time submitters or longtime participants — what’s one piece of advice you’d leave them with today as we wrap up?

[00:28:40] Barnaby Merrill: First of all, email me or connect with me on LinkedIn — I’ll get that one in there. Secondly, what we’re most interested in is hearing exactly what you do for your clients, why your clients come to you, why they come back to you, and what it is you can do that sets you apart from other firms and lawyers in the market. That’s the real centerpiece of Legal 500’s ranking methodology. And we’d love to hear from as many firms and attorneys who are interested as possible.

[00:29:12] Michelle Calcote King: Great. Well, we have been talking to Barnaby Merrill of Legal 500, so thank you so much for your time today.

[00:29:19] Barnaby Merrill: Thanks very much. Thanks for having me.