From Submission to Ranking: Chambers Explained – Europe 2024 – Q&A
The Chambers Europe team share the answers to questions asked during the Submission to Ranking: Chambers Explained Europe webinar, providing details and insights into all things relating to submissions and referees.
When will the deadlines be published?
To view the list of submissions deadlines, please visit Research Schedule | Chambers and Partners.
Do solo practitioners of small firms with less than 6 lawyers stand a realistic chance of being ranked, e.g., in litigation?
The most important factor is the work and referee feedback. If this supports a ranking, we would rank solo practitioners and smaller firms.
Does referee feedback lose “value” when we submit them a couple of years in a row? Is it preferred to submit new referees every year?
Referees that have been submitted previously are still valuable, provided that they can discuss new work or give an update. It is good to have a mix of newer and more long-term clients as long as the feedback is relevant and relating to work conducted in the 12 months prior.
Are all referees always contacted?
We aim to contact all referees. Sometimes it is not possible to if the referee was contacted very recently as we want to avoid overwhelming the individual with feedback requests, or if the contact information we have been given is incorrect. We will also contact a maximum of 20 clients only; if a firm submits more than 20 referees, we will stop once we reach 20.
What is considered a satisfactory response rate?
We generally consider 30-40% response rate to be good.
Is there a minimum number of matters that need to be included on a submission in order to be considered?
There is no minimum amount, however if we are seeing less work, it can be harder to make a judgment. If the work seen is relevant and the feedback supports, we can still consider the firm for a ranking.
However, if a submission is sent with no work highlights included, that makes it quite hard on our end.
Do you have a rule regarding not contacting referees that were contacted in the last 3 months?
We will only contact referees once in a three-month window. However, we do cover all referrals we have at that time for that individual and they are more than welcome to get in touch should they wish to provide more comments on other lawyers or law firms.
Will the Referee Management Tool show that you have not sent e-mails to some of our referees?
The Referee Management Tool will indicate whether there has been an issue contacting referees. This could be due to a range of reasons, including that the referee(s) has requested that they not be contacted, incorrect contact details and so on.