Submission training for law firms: Chambers, Legal 500, JUVE
We train law firms to prepare their ranking submissions themselves — for Chambers and Partners, The Legal 500, JUVE and other directories. The training conveys above all what is not written in the rankings’ own guidelines: what researchers actually want to read, how a matter description has to be built so that it counts, and which formulations are understood immediately.
Partners, legal staff and marketing should attend together: the partners bring the cases, marketing brings the process — both need the same understanding. We work on real, anonymised examples with handouts and exercises.
The training is led by Alexander Dillinger, in the legal industry since 2004 and author of the first book on law firm rankings, “Kompass Kanzlei-Rankings”, published by C. H. BECK, MANZ and Stämpfli with contributions from Chambers and Partners, The Legal 500 and Thomson Reuters. If you would rather hand the submission over, here is full submission support and the check of a submission you prepared yourself.
What the submission training covers
Structure of a submission
Which fields really count- A submission form has four kinds of field, and they do not count equally: nominal entries, definition figures such as the number of partners, and the decisive background information.
- The last group includes publishable clients, the matter descriptions and the field “What is this department best known for”.
- Anyone who does not know the weighting spends their time in the wrong place.
What a matter has to contain
The features that are looked for- Cross-border jurisdictions, many parties involved with a high coordination effort, landmark decisions, novel commercial or legal structures, transaction value.
- We analyse real, anonymised matter descriptions and work out why one of them works and the other does not.
Writing successful submissions
Four rules and one structure- No marketing speak, only claims that stand up, not overly legalistic, keep within the length limits.
- Every matter follows the same structure: explain the facts and your own contribution, bring out what was special, quantify it, show the partners’ role.
- Plus the difference between non-confidential and anonymised confidential matters — and how the non-matter chapters are written.
Client referees
Selection, approach, preparation- How referees are selected correctly and prepared for the survey.
- How to approach them without overburdening them — and what happens when this step is skipped.
Steering instead of chance
The strategic goal before the project starts- Is a practice area to be promoted, a partner, or an office? Leaving that open costs time, produces contradictions between practice groups and leads, unsteered, to a result nobody planned.
- The control question during content collection: why am I choosing precisely this matter, and does it pay into the goal?
- For marketing leads additionally: setup, project governance, responsibilities, escalation routes and regular reporting to the committees.
Communicating with the directories
Contacts, deadlines, definitions- Who the contacts at Chambers, Legal 500 and JUVE are, and how to raise deadline extensions and referee management.
- Where the official deadline schedules and the practice area definitions are — and how to write submission texts against those definitions.
Working time-efficiently
For partners- How to prepare for a submission and organise your steps efficiently.
- How to identify the important content of a matter without going through the whole file.
- Continuous data collection: the earlier the data is available, the higher the quality — and the lower the effort shortly before the deadline.
Data protection and naming clients
Naming them lawfully- When and how a legally sound client consent for being named is obtained.
- What belongs in publishable matters and what belongs exclusively in confidential ones.
Further seminars
Alongside the submission training we hold seminars in-house and within bar association and professional association programmes — among others for the Deutscher Anwaltverein, the International Bar Association, the C. H. BECK AKADEMIE, the Rechtsakademie MANZ and the Vienna University of Economics and Business.
Evaluating the rankings’ sales offers. Which paid offers from the directories actually achieve something? We cover profiles, advertisements, badges and plaques, the rankings’ analysis and referee tools and paid awards — and the question of whether there is any connection at all between these purchases and the ranking result. In one fully calculated case at a German firm, more than EUR 20,000 a year could be cut.
Business development and sales for lawyers. From defining the target group through the sales conversation to price negotiation for legal services, including sales via LinkedIn and budget planning — more under sales coaching.
Negotiation training for lawyers. Preparing for your own weak points, personality types in negotiations, opening a conversation and questioning technique, tactics against a stronger counterpart, remote negotiations — more under negotiation training.
All seminars are available in English and German.
Discuss a training: tell us who will attend — partners, marketing or both —, which directories matter to you and how much time you have in mind. You get a proposal for content, duration and a fixed price.
Frequently asked questions about the training
Who should attend?
Partners, legal staff and marketing leads — ideally together. The partners bring the cases, marketing brings the process.
Does the training take place at our firm?
Yes, as an in-house format, tailored to your practice areas and your directories. In English or German.
Do you work with our own cases?
On request, yes. Otherwise with anonymised examples from our practice, in which patterns of success and failure show up particularly clearly.
What can we do ourselves after the training?
Set up a submission in a structured way, select and write matters, prepare client referees and steer the process internally. What firms report above all is that their submissions have a clear shape afterwards.
And if we do want to hand it over after all?
Then we take it on — either the complete submission or just the check of your own version.