Directories season is here: our top ten tips to help make your submissions sparkle

Every year when January rolls around and the workers of this great nation shake off their post-Christmas torpor, dust away the powdered sugar left behind by their final mince pie, and roll up their sleeves to get stuck into the new year and its set of fresh challenges, I always imagine hearing a collective, world-weary sigh emanating from law-firm marketing and BD teams up and down the land: directories season is once more upon us!

Having served as a researcher and editor of The Legal 500’s TMT, Scotland and East Anglia chapters, and having read, written and reviewed north of one thousand directories submissions myself for all of the leading directories, I have sat on both sides of the directories seesaw. And so I know full well that many business professionals working in law firms regard the directories process in the same way that they do a visit to the dentist: as a necessary evil.

Call me weird (you wouldn’t be the first), but I myself actually rather relish the challenge of writing a compelling, punchy submission that I am confident will stand out in a sea of sameness and make the researchers and editors sit up and take note. I’ve had plenty of practice, after all.

And so have many of the TBD team. Our Senior Legal Marketing Expert, Claire Farrelly, has been directly involved in the creation and review of literally hundreds and hundreds of directories submissions over the course of her career. Between them, Business Manager Jemma Crutchlow-Porter and my Si’s Matters co-author and Senior Copywriter David Mossop have either written or reviewed, and thereby greatly improved, dozens and dozens of our clients’ submissions over the past couple of years.

Now we’d like to help you, if not to actively enjoy the submission-writing process, then at least to dread it slightly less, with our top ten tips for crafting submissions that zing and which produce the best outcomes for your firm, your teams and your individual practitioners. So let’s get started!

1. Your referees make or break your submissions

If you do nothing else, make sure you select the right referees for each of your submissions. Choose people who are likely to respond to the editors’ requests for a reference and are willing to say positive things about you. Ideally, they will also have an informed view of the market, as the more they are able to place their feedback into context, the more relevant it will be to the researchers.

NB. No, it’s not fair that you are only allowed 20 referees. But everybody is hamstrung equally by this same unfairness - thereby making it fair (?!).

2. Have a strategy for every submission

You should know what your desired outcome is for each of the submissions you send off. Are you trying to get listed as a firm? Or bumped up a tier? Or are you trying to get more individuals listed? If your firm has been ranked before, it is highly unlikely that your aim is merely to maintain your table position, unless you have suffered some departures over the course of the previous year – in which case, this is a sensible aim and worth focusing on.

Whatever your strategy is, you need to be clear and upfront about it in the submission itself: let the researchers know in your introduction what your ambition is, and then use the rest of the submission to evidence why this is your strategy.

For example, if you write in your introduction that “we are one of the leading family law practices and we believe that you should rank two more of our individuals”, then explain in your overview that you have structured the submission accordingly: “we have therefore given the majority of our matters over to these individuals. The rest of the team remains credible and excellent, but we haven’t got sufficient bandwidth in this submission to also showcase everyone’s great work.”

3. Treat each submission like a pitch

For each submission you write, imagine that it is a pitch document that you will be sending out to a key client. This will help you write something that is well-structured, jargon-free and clearly signposts the key points you are making. Be clear, consistent and succinct throughout.

The aim of the game is to make it as easy as possible for the reader – in this case, most likely a researcher who may not be that familiar with your practice area – to ‘buy’ what you are ‘pitching’.?

4. Use the matters to substantiate your claims?

In each matter summary, don’t be afraid to spell out to the researchers what you have just told them, with a recall to the claims you made in your introduction/overview: “This demonstrates our ability to handle complex/cutting-edge/high-value/precedent-setting work”, etc.?

Whatever the key feature of the respective matter is, make this explicit and unambiguous for the researchers in bold at the bottom of the summary. Don’t leave them having to pan for the gold themselves.

5. Review your referees list in light of Point 4 above

Which of your referees will back up what you’ve just said? Jettison any that you’re unsure of. Better to have fewer referees than include ones that might fail to sing from the same hymn sheet and cast you in the best possible light.

6. The directories did not ‘get it wrong’...

Nothing will put a researcher or editor’s back up quicker than telling them they made the wrong call on the last go-round. Be in no doubt: they didn’t get your ranking wrong, and they didn’t get anyone else’s ranking wrong. They made the best decision available to them, based on the evidence in front of them, and on all the submissions they received, some of which may have simply made a more compelling case than your own.

The onus is on you to influence their thinking. And then it’s on your referees and everybody else in the market to agree with and augment your position. Simples.

7. … and they don’t care how another directory ranked you

Informing the researchers and editors that another directory ranked your firm or your individuals higher than they did is just another way of saying that you think they did their job wrong. It’s annoying and counter-productive. Just don’t do it.

8. Be gracious, and maybe even congratulatory

Something that the researchers and editors will appreciate is being told that you think they did a good job, perhaps even a great job, in their previous assessment of your firm, its individual practitioners, the market, etc.?

These people are human beings and, like all human beings, need and appreciate a little recognition for what is, fundamentally, pretty arduous work – I certainly know that I always welcomed the occasional ‘attaboy’ when I worked as a researcher and editor. So a ‘thank you’ goes a long way, not least in establishing the credibility of the rest of your feedback and comments.

9. If in doubt, request an external review

Sure, if you truly dread writing your submissions, we can take that task off your hands. But the truth is that you don’t really need to pay someone else to write them for you (how’s that for a sales pitch?) – nobody knows your firm and the achievements of its teams and individuals better than you and your people, and so it makes eminent sense for you to be the ones to write about these topics with passion and conviction.

But where TBD or another provider of your choice can really add value is during the review stage: a fresh set of experienced eyes can really help you in implementing your strategy and ensuring that your submission ticks all the right boxes and gives you the best chance of achieving your intended outcome.

10. For the love of all that is right in the world, don’t use ChatGPT to write your submissions

This point might seem obvious, but you’d be surprised. So, no matter how tempted you may be to seek the assistance of ChatGPT, be in no doubt that it would be an extremely bad idea to feed confidential client matters and sensitive internal information into ChatGPT’s data-hungry maw.

In fact, you should run a GPTZero check on all the materials you receive from internal and external stakeholders before using these in your submission. If you don’t, it’s odds-on that the researchers will, and then penalise you accordingly if they find AI-generated content, which they will rightly deem lazy.

A note on SRA guidelines

In 2022, the SRA introduced new requirements regarding confidentiality and client information. These guidelines mean that all SRA-regulated firms could be subject to a spot check to show consent by the client for information shared around all cases, including those used in directory submissions and marketing materials.

A note on submissions deadlines

You can find the full research schedule for Chambers & Partners 2026 here. Please note that some deadlines have already passed, with research now under way.

The Legal 500 submissions deadline is Friday 7 February 2025 for the UK regions, and Friday 21 March for London and PATMA. Visit this page to read about the changes introduced for this year’s research, as well as for further details on practice areas.

Don’t miss out – join us in Leeds for our big LinkedInfluencers Q4 Launch Event!

Next Thursday, TBD will be publishing our keenly anticipated Q4 LinkedInfluencers Report, in which we will bring you all the latest rankings and stats from the world of Legal LinkedIn: bigger, bolder and better than ever before.

To mark the occasion, we will be co-hosting a launch event with Eversheds Sutherland at their Leeds premises.

We’ll start by going through rankings from the Q4 LinkedInfluencer Report, before moving on to two discussions:

1.How to use LinkedIn at every stage of your career, with Paul Verrico of Eversheds, Charlie Moore of Kingsley Napley, and Patrick McCann of Linklaters; and?

2. A Q&A with Jodie Hill, founder of Thrive Law

There will be refreshments available as we welcome guests, followed by the two discussions, and then an hour or so of networking, food and drinks, before we wrap up at around 8pm.

Date: Thursday 16 January

Time: 4pm-8pm

Location: Eversheds Sutherland, Bridgewater Place, Water Lane, Leeds, LS11 5DR

It’s not too late to apply for your place at this event – we would love to see you there!

A reminder: submit your blog for the next round of our competition

You may remember that, a couple of issues back, we announced the launch of the second round of our legal blog competition, Tested By David.

This time round, we are looking for the best Employment Law blogs published between 13th December 2024 and midnight on 14th February.

The only two entry requirements are that 1) the author is an SRA-regulated lawyer or barrister who wrote the blog themselves (no ghost-written content please, and 2) the blog has a strong, SEO-friendly headline.

We’ll announce the winner here in Si’s Matters in early March.

You can submit your entries here.

There must be a few competitive employment lawyers among our readership, surely??

In other news

It’s an Albert Square-off at RGB

Rarely to never is the small-c conservative legal sector reminiscent of a Christmas special of Eastenders. But that’s exactly what I was reminded of on Wednesday as I read in The Lawyer about RGB’s accusations of “offensive behaviour unbecoming of a solicitor” against its largest shareholder, Ian Rosenblatt, and then about Rosenblatt’s counter-accusations in the Law Society Gazette. RGB has apparently cancelled Rosenblatt’s consultancy contract with immediate effect due to his alleged breaches of said contract, including Rosenblatt’s attempt to oust the company’s CEO by requisitioning an EGM in the runup to Christmas. For his part, Rosenblatt has described RGB’s full termination statement as “one big lie”. ??

Gongs for legal luminaries in the latest New Year Honours List

As covered across much of the legal press, including Legal Cheek, this year’s New Year’s Honours List included some well-known faces from the legal sector – among them friend of TBD Dana Denis Smith, who was awarded an OBE for her services to women in law. Huge congratulations, Dana!

Will 2025 be the year of the buyout boom?

On Sunday, a piece in the Observer discussed the potential surge in M&A work set to keep City lawyers working around the clock this year. Featuring quotes from Patrick Sarch, partner and head of the public mergers and acquisitions division at White & Chase, and fellow partner Sonica Tolani, the article discusses the difficulties that corporate lawyers have faced in the wake of the pandemic, and why 2025 is set to be a bumper year in the City.

Britain's 'oldest' barrister still going strong in his 10th decade

Last week, BBC News ran a feature on 90-year-old Noel Philo, who is believed to be Britain's oldest practising criminal barrister. Philo, who was called to the bar in 1975 and works at Lincoln Crown Court, celebrated his 90th birthday on Christmas Day and apparently has no intention of retiring any time soon.

New year, new podcast series: But Is It Legal? returns

After our Christmas hiatus, we are back with a brand-new series of TBD’s podcast for the legal sector, But Is It Legal? Kicking off the second series is none other than my fellow Bristol resident and caffeine aficionado Heledd Wyn – when it comes to the best coffee spots in our adopted home city, Heledd really knows her onions, I mean barristas.?

In this episode, we discuss her career journey to date as a private client solicitor, the importance of helping out the next generation of lawyers, and how word-of-mouth recommendations harnessed with the power of LinkedIn have helped her practice flourish.

You can catch up here:

YouTube

Spotify?

I hope you enjoyed this week’s edition!

Thanks,

Si Marshall

[email protected]