The Legal Business Global London ranking – which ranks the fifty biggest non-UK firms by their London headcount – is largely made up of the biggest firms in the world, with 90% of those fifty also featuring among the Global 100 revenue rankings.
But while revenue and headcount tell one side of the story, there are of course many other criteria that clients care about when choosing a law firm.
And so for an alternative perspective, Legal Business delved into the data gathered during the Legal 500 research to reveal which of the Global London firms score best for client service – based solely on the views of their London referees.
The data is compiled via responses from clients canvassed during the rankings research, when they are asked to rate the firms they instruct on 10 core client service metrics (the full list is at the bottom of this article), using a sliding scale of 0-100. Those responses are then averaged to give an overall score for each firm.
To ensure a representative comparison between firms, we’ve broken down the Global London group into three groups – those with 200+ lawyers in London, those with 50-200, and those with fewer than 50. The below charts provide a snapshot of the five top-scoring firms for each metric.
Skadden scores highest among firms with 200 or more lawyers in London for lawyer/team quality, which is compiled from client scores for three sub-criteria: quality of partners, quality of associates, and partner availability/engagement. The firm held onto its tenth-place spot in this year’s Global London table, with lawyer headcount up almost 12% to 254.
Joint-second place was shared between Weil, Sidley Austin, and Simpson Thacher, just ahead of Latham & Watkins in fifth.
Latham, however, is the highest scoring firm for sector/industry knowledge, which covers two sub-criteria: sector knowledge and sector profile. The firm, which sits top of the Global London ranking for the fourth consecutive year with 594 lawyers, is also one of only two firms to to rank in the top five for all three core criteria – lawyers and team quality; sector and industry knowledge; and value, billing and efficiency – alongside Sidley.
For value: billing and efficiency, which takes into account resourcing, billing transparency, value for money, communication and efficiency, White & Case is the highest-scoring 200+ lawyer firm, just ahead of Sidley and Latham.
Moving into the second bracket of firms by size, Sullivan & Cromwell is the top scoring firm for lawyer/team quality among those with 50-200 lawyers in London. It slipped two places to 38th in the Global London ranking this year, with lawyer numbers down over 6% to 88, although partner count increased 20% to 18.
In second place for lawyers/team quality is WilmerHale – the only firm with 50-200 lawyers to appear in the top five on all three core metrics.
In the 50-200 bracket, Ropes & Gray scores highest for sector/industry knowledge, just ahead of Debevoise & Plimpton. While many firms in this mid-bracket saw year-on-year declines in headcount, Debevoise saw both lawyer and partner numbers rise, up 10% and 25% respectively.
Morrison Foerster scored highest for value: billing and efficiency, and was also third for lawyer/team quality.
Full list of client service criteria
Lawyers/team quality
Quality of partners
Quality of associates
Partner availability and engagement
Value: billing and efficiency
Appropriate resourcing
Billing: transparency
Billing: value for work done
Communication and case management
Efficiency in delivering the legal product
Sector and industry knowledge
Industry/commercial knowledge of the sector
Profile in the sector
For more on value: billing and efficiency, see our feature on the best-performing UK-headquartered firms in the Global 100.
All of the scores in this article are compiled from referee responses collected during Legal 500 research. If you would like to know more, please contact [email protected] – we welcome all feedback on our data and what insights you would like to see.
