What Actually Gets You in the Lawdragon 500

Transcript

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[00:00:00] Alison Preece: We joke sometimes that we’re lawyer stans. We are the biggest fans of lawyers that you’re ever going to meet.

[00:00:10] 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.

[00:00:27] Michelle Calcote King: Hi, everyone. I’m Michelle Calcote King. I’m your host, and I’m also 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 — that’s ink with a K — .com. Legal rankings have become a fixture of law firm marketing, but Lawdragon has spent two decades doing them differently, treating rankings as a journalism project as much as a list. Today, we’re talking with the women behind the Lawdragon 500: founder Katrina Dewey and senior editor Alison Preece. They’ll break down how the Lawdragon 500 actually works and help us learn how legal marketers can get their firms on the list. Welcome to the show to you both.

[00:01:12] Alison Preece: Thank you so much, Michelle. It’s great to be here.

[00:01:15] Katrina Dewey: Thanks for having us.

[00:01:16] Michelle Calcote King: I’m excited to talk to you both. Katrina, Lawdragon launched in 2005. You’ve described it as an editorial and news company that also does lists. What was the founding vision, and what did you think was missing from the legal rankings landscape at the time?

[00:01:35] Katrina Dewey: We started a legal media company, which is what our background was in. As legal journalists, I had started making lists of lawyers in 1989, which at the time I think only the National Law Journal had a list of lawyers. Best Lawyers might have started by then, but it wasn’t a thing at all. It was kind of like, “Let’s come up with some new, interesting content for our readers of our newspaper.” When we started Lawdragon, we wanted to create a nationwide — and now global — legal media company that anybody could access great information about lawyers and legal professionals from a variety of standpoints. And to start a business and get some attention, what do you do? Make a list. That’s how the Lawdragon 500 came to be. Over the years, we saw how rankings of lawyers blossomed in the legal niche, and we kind of think we do them better than anybody else, so we thought we’d do more.

[00:02:52] Michelle Calcote King: Fantastic. Let’s dive into the process of actually putting together the Lawdragon 500. Alison, tell me what that process looks like and how the editorial side shapes it.

[00:03:08] Alison Preece: From that very first leading lawyers in America list, the Lawdragon 500, we now have 36 guides that we’re producing this year. Some of them are practice area-specific, some of them are regional, and we’ve been expanding every year. Each guide is very competitive because they are pretty tight. The lawyers and legal professionals are selected from three different areas: nominations, peer review, and editorial research. In terms of the research — us looking into lawyers and legal professionals — it’s kind of never-ending. We have the privilege of talking to some of the most influential legal minds on a daily basis. We’re getting their thoughts on the market trends affecting their practice and the business of law, everything from machine learning to the war in Ukraine to changes in Washington. It’s incredible, and it helps us stay really up to date about the lawyers at the top of their games who are shaping the law right now. We’re talking to them for profile pieces, helping them shape bylined opinion pieces, doing features on cases or trends in the market. We’re also talking to them about their peers, their co-counsel, who they think is really great, who they’re surprised made a guide. We’re getting that feedback almost daily. So we have a really keen sense of who’s out there on the front lines and who’s coming up in the ranks. We joke sometimes that we’re lawyer stans. We are the biggest fans of lawyers that you’re ever going to meet.

[00:04:53] Michelle Calcote King: It’s really never-ending. I’ve always loved how you approach it from a journalism perspective — the writing really stands out. Let’s talk about submissions. Marketers and lawyers can prepare a submission, so what do you actually need from that submission, and what separates a strong one from a weak one?

[00:05:20] Alison Preece: The best advice I can give is to get really targeted. If you’re submitting an attorney for our IP guide, we don’t really need to know about their antitrust work. We don’t need you to copy and paste their firm bio, either. We know where to get that information. I used to work in-house, and I get it — you have layers of approval and a lot of internal politics to deal with. But we are founded by journalists, and we have a journalistic perspective. As much as you can, write it like a news piece: lead with the most interesting thing. Think about headlines, think about bullet points — what is fascinating about this lawyer? You can definitely include career highlights, but we also really focus on the last year in particular. That’s always going to be really helpful.

[00:06:21] Michelle Calcote King: Storytelling, writing as if it’s an article, but also recent — why make the list this year? That’s great advice. Katrina, there’s a conversation in legal marketing circles where rankings programs are treated like a hassle — time-consuming, process-heavy, uncertain payoff. How do you respond to that?

[00:06:51] Katrina Dewey: I think there are rankings, and then there’s Lawdragon — and I’m not dismissing the others; I think they’re great and valid in many ways. But with traditional ranking and recognition programs, the submission is kind of the end of the conversation. The firm puts tremendous resources into it, they’re up late at night trying to hit the deadline, they get the tier or whatever it is they wanted, and then it’s over. That’s the end of the conversation for most ranking companies. For us, it’s the beginning. Whoever ends up on our lists, we get to know them better because we’ve now spent a lot of time looking at them — what’s been written about them, their cases, what others have said about them — and then we move on and write articles about many of them. Rankings are a piece of content that differentiates you. With tens of thousands of lawyers competing for clients and jobs, you need to differentiate yourself in the most meaningful way possible, and quality rankings have become a way to do that. We really understand it can be a hassle for the people who prepare them. We try to make our process as friendly as possible. But if you keep the outcome in mind and what you’re trying to achieve for your client, they’re a really valuable tool.

[00:08:46] Michelle Calcote King: Tell me how you think about AI. My understanding is that AI really relies on a lot of these rankings programs to surface recommendations. Is that what you’re finding?

[00:09:03] Katrina Dewey: Yes. We’ve seen that. As AI becomes even more intelligent, it will discern — and I think we already see it — sifting among the more quality rankings, not just what people are feeding into it. We hope to always be ahead in the quality space so that continues, and AI becomes our friend rather than something that levels professionals who are not all the same.

[00:09:44] Michelle Calcote King: Alison, I know you get feedback from marketers that they love Lawdragon’s determined practice areas. Can you tell me what that means and why it seems to have extra value?

[00:10:00] Alison Preece: In addition to the practice-specific guides, our editorial team drafts a tight description of each lawyer’s practice in relation to that guide. In our immigration guide, for example, one person’s practice area might say, “Business immigration, especially EB-5 visas.” Another could say, “Immigration litigation, including removal defense and asylum.” So it gives lawyers an extra data point for their bios — a third-party description they can use to showcase exactly what they do under that larger umbrella. It’s been really popular, and it adds utility for potential clients looking for an immigration lawyer who can meet their specific needs. On the AI piece — the crawlers really like Lawdragon because we’re laying it out neatly for them. And then, like Katrina said, we get to know you through our immigration guide, and maybe we think you’d make a great profile, so now there are all these additional data points, including that targeted practice area. AI takes all that and produces this tight summary: “Alison Preece is a business immigration lawyer that focuses on visas for professionals coming over.” It just gives you this perfect paragraph.

[00:11:29] Michelle Calcote King: It really is the perfect match. What I’ve found is AI is increasing demand for PR because of the third-party validation factor — after the journalism and PR industry suffering for so long, it’s nice to have AI come along and really value that third-party endorsement factor. Katrina, you’ve been doing this for a long time. Where do you see all of this heading? When you started out, no one was doing it, and now it is such an important part of how attorneys differentiate themselves.

[00:12:16] Katrina Dewey: I think the next few years are going to be very interesting, in part because of AI, as you see ranking companies diverge in how they use it and how much they continue to invest in the humanity of the people they’re researching and ranking as opposed to just the data. I can’t speak to any of the others, but we’re firmly on the side of humanity. We’re going to double down on our interaction with lawyers and our research about lawyers. You may have seen we’ve hired David Burgess, formerly of Legal 500, to lead our big firm effort. He’s fantastic at working with people and shares our team’s philosophy. I hope everybody else goes all in on data, and we’ll just be out there talking to lawyers and legal professionals.

[00:13:11] Michelle Calcote King: Just having those conversations. I know you guys do an AI list. Can you tell me a little bit about that?

[00:13:20] Alison Preece: That’s been fascinating. I think this is our third year doing it — and that’s one really fun thing about Lawdragon: we’ll add new guides based on emerging practice areas. Three years ago, we were asking: who are the lawyers really shaping the laws that are trying to catch up with the technology? This past year, we had it as a list of 100 because three years ago there weren’t that many lawyers working on this. The number of nominations we got this year was remarkable. We’re definitely going to make it a 500 next year because the practice area has just ballooned. We’re talking to the lawyers who are suing OpenAI because a teenager was encouraged to take his own life over a chat. We’re also talking to the people defending those companies and helping them figure out which laws are relevant. Some lawyers say, “It’s really hard because there’s no regulation — this is like the Wild West.” Others say, “No, this is a product liability case,” or, “This is straight intellectual property.” A lot of these cases are still in the works, so the next few years are going to be really telling.

[00:15:18] Michelle Calcote King: We’re living in an interesting time. What else is new for you? I think you mentioned a big firm initiative — I’d love to hear about that.

[00:15:33] Katrina Dewey: Big firms have always been part of what we do, but they haven’t really been a mainstay of our business. We also saw openings in the market for plaintiff firms, for ranking women, and for inclusion. Alison and I and the whole team are very proud to have played some role in progress in the thinking of traditional rankings in that regard. In these times, those are not necessarily what we’re supposed to talk about, but we’ll continue to lean in on women and inclusion. And on the big firm side, our whole team loves big firms — Alison has a big firm background — and we’re eager to work with them and learn what their needs are now and address that hesitation: “This is a Chambers world. Do we really need to deal with Lawdragon?” And we’re saying, “Hey, give us a chance. We’re kind of interesting, and we want to hear you and what you need.”

[00:16:57] Michelle Calcote King: As somebody who’s been on your consultants list, I certainly appreciate the opportunity to be ranked. It’s an incredible strategy for anyone looking to establish their reputation in the market. Is there anything else you think marketers need to know as they assess the landscape and submit to your list?

[00:17:36] Alison Preece: I would say just a bit of basic process. If you go to the guide section of our website, you’ll see our editorial calendar, which lists all 36 guides for the year. We normally update that late fall, so you’ll see next year’s coming out before Thanksgiving. Each guide has the nomination deadline and the publication deadline, and you can click through and see our selection methodology. You can have a pretty decent roadmap. Then just reach out to us with any questions. If you’re wondering, “What’s the difference between the cyber guide and the IP guide, and which one is better for my lawyer?” — we’re always happy to talk through that and give more guidance if you’re not able to parse it through our methodology. All of our previous guides are housed there as well, so you can see the types of people we’re honoring, and I think that’ll be helpful.

[00:18:33] Michelle Calcote King: What’s the best way firms can leverage being on the list once they’re there to promote it?

[00:18:52] Alison Preece: Different lawyers and firms are going to have really different approaches. For some plaintiff firms and boutique firms, what they really want is the badge to put on their bio, to talk about it on LinkedIn, and then they’re set — and that’s great. Some of the big law firms are more interested in editorial pieces. If you’re on a guide, you’re in a really good position to be profiled by us. Profiles can be anything from a career retrospective — what brought you to where you are, what you do for fun, really personal stuff — to a deep dive on a case. “This was this incredible litigation that lasted eight years, and here are the war stories behind it.” After you make a guide, you can really look and ask, “What more can I dive into about this?”

[00:19:51] Michelle Calcote King: That’s great. Well, thank you both so much. We’ve been talking to Katrina Dewey and Alison Preece of Lawdragon. Thanks for your time.

[00:20:00] Alison Preece: Thank you so much, Michelle.

[00:20:02] Katrina Dewey: Thank you for having us.

[00:20:04] Announcer: Thanks for listening to Spill the Ink, a podcast by Reputation Ink. We’ll see you again next time, and be sure to click subscribe to get future episodes.