Biglaw, In-House Counsel, Rankings

The Biglaw Firms That In-House Counsel Recommend Most

The name of the game is superior client service. Is your firm in it to win it?

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Say you’re working in-house at a prominent, profitable company, and you’ve got a major legal problem on your hands. It’s a bet-the-company litigation matter, and you’re not quite sure which law firm to choose to handle the issue. You turn to a colleague for advice, and luckily enough, they’re ready to make a recommendation to you on the spot thanks to one firm’s superior client service.

Unprompted recommendations from legal decision makers in the corporate world are like liquid gold for law firms. Just one unprompted recommendation can lead to an attorney/client relationship that can last for decades, prompting more and more such recommendations, leading to more and more satisfied clients (not to mention more and more money for the recommended law firms).

But which law firms receive the most unprompted recommendations? Thanks to a new study that was just released by BTI Consulting Group, we now know.

According to BTI, not all recommendations are equal. Why’s that? Here’s some pertinet information from BTI Consulting Group’s Mad Clientist blog:

Unprompted recommendations mean you earned this recommendation on your own merit rather than being asked specifically about your firm (BTI asked corporate counsel, “Which law firm do you recommend to your peers?” Most other researchers ask, “Do you recommend Firm ABC?”). The answer to the first question is a much higher and more reliable standard than the second.

Without any further ado, these are the 10 firms that have been the most recommended by corporate counsel for the past 15 years, consecutively:

  • Baker McKenzie
  • Foley & Lardner
  • Holland & Knight
  • Jones Day
  • Latham & Watkins
  • McGuireWoods
  • Pillsbury
  • Ropes & Gray
  • Sidley
  • Sullivan & Cromwell

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According to BTI’s research, 64 percent of legal decision makers cited superior client service as the reason they were most likely to recommend their go-to firms. A dedication to superior client service has essentially been baked into the firm culture at the most recommended firms. In an interview with Law360 (sub. req.), BTI president Michael Rynowecer said, “You can’t perform at that level for 15 years without it being a part of the understanding of who you are as a firm. There’s an unspoken — or spoken — expectation that client service is paramount and comes first and will be on top of the list of things attorneys have to do.”

Congratulations to all of the firms that have been recommended by their corporate clients steadfastly for more than a decade. If you want your firm to someday be among those on this list, then it would be a good idea to encourage attorneys to intimately get to know your clients’ business, and then show them how deep your understanding of their business really is — after all, that’s all they really want from their attorneys. Try it out sometime and reap the rewards.

The Most Recommended Law Firms 2017 [The Mad Clientist / BTI Consulting Group]
The 10 Law Firms Clients Recommend Most [Law360 (sub. req.)]

Staci ZaretskyStaci Zaretsky has been an editor at Above the Law since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

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