In the July/ August 2004 issue of Diversity & the Bar®, we examined the LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell ratings' selection process, how the ratings were established, and what they mean. In the September/ October issue, we reviewed the new permitted uses of the ratings, and how they are used as a traditional lawyer-to-lawyer evaluation and referral tool. In this final issue of the year, we complete the three-part series of articles by examining several innovative approaches to using the ratings.
The peer-rated Martindale-Hubbell AV1, BV2, or CV3 ratings are awarded on the basis of an attorney's ability and high ethical standard, as well as the length of time that the practitioner has been in practice. While the ratings are often used by attorneys when making referrals or looking for counsel in other jurisdictions, they have other uses as well. Here's a look at how some attorneys have used the Martindale-Hubbell ratings to further career objectives, evaluate potential nominees to the bench, recruit new staff, and develop business.
Potential Nominees to the Bench
Thomas Z. Hayward, Jr. is the senior partner of Bell, Boyd & Lloyd LLC in Chicago, Illinois, and chairs the ABA Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary, which evaluates potential federal judges. "We are a peer review committee which responds to nominations from the White House," says Hayward. "Our peer review is in three areas of professional qualifications—integrity, temperament, and professional experience."
"We use the Martindale-Hubbell rating as one reference point to get a feel for someone else's peer review about the individual's background and the strength of his or her professional experience," Hayward notes. Through an agreement with the Senate, the committee takes no more than 30 days to complete a report for a nomination, providing there are no extenuating circumstances. "I send a two-to-six inch thick report out to all members of the committee. In the past year, we've reviewed almost 50 potential judges. Last year, we did 68. The current administration has done over 200," says Hayward.
To research the nominees, Hayward's 14-person committee uses all the tools available. "We use the Martindale-Hubbell ratings, we do Lexis searches, and we interview between 50 and 70 judges and lawyers for every nomination. So, the Martindale-Hubbell rating is just one index of peer review."
As useful as the ratings are, they aren't available in some cases. "Many times we get a nomination for a sitting judge from a state or federal court, and Martindale-Hubbell has no rating for that person." Hayward acknowledges that in the past, bias and practice areas affected minorities and women and their ability to be objectively rated.
After the committee has reviewed the investigative report on the nominee, it votes the person "well qualified," "qualified," or "not qualified."
"We are not concerned with the person's politics and we're not concerned with their ideology," says Hayward. "At the end of the day, I'd say the Martindale-Hubbell rating is one of many tools that our committee looks at and takes into account when we're doing our peer review evaluation of a nominee for either the District Court, the Court of Appeals, or the Supreme Court," Hayward emphasizes.
The Ratings and Insurance Companies
"It's helpful in all realms to say you're AV-rated, including when you're applying for insurance," says Frank Alvarez, a partner in Hermes Sargent Bates LLP in Dallas, Texas, which represents many insurance clients. "I know it makes a difference," he stresses.
In 2000, Hermes Sargent Bates LLP, which has approximately 45 lawyers, opened for business. "If I'm going to use an outside firm, I usually look them up on Martindale-Hubbell and see if they're rated," says Alvarez.
Alvarez has begun stressing the importance of ratings to members of his law firm. "Some folks don't take the time to go through the process to be rated. I understand that all of our lawyers who can be rated are currently in the process of doing it." He admits he is not yet rated. "But now, I'm eight years out [of law school], so I'm in the process. I encourage people to fill out the peer surveys when they receive them, because they're going to want the favor returned at some point," he conveys.
In the past, Hermes Sargent Bates had not stressed ratings in their marketing efforts. "When everyone is rated, we'll try to market that a little more," explains Alvarez. "Most folks go to the Martindale-Hubbell web site and see that you're rated or not. I anticipate that we'll use the AV rating in marketing the firm," he continues.
Ratings Enhance Credibility
Michael Conroy is the CEO of WEMED Consulting (an acronym for Wilson, Elser, Moskowitz, Edelman & Dicker LLP) and a former executive vice president with St. Paul Insurance. For the past year, Conroy has been helping the firm build a business division. His consulting practice is separate and apart from the law firm. Conroy was in the insurance industry for 39 years. He spent 8.5 years with St. Paul Insurance, 25 years with Chubb, and 4 years with the Home Insurance Company.
"Ratings are important if the customer believes that the rating process is a credible process. Because if they don't, they're going to just throw the rating out as a consideration."
– Michael Conroy
In his opinion, the ratings are very important to in-house counsel. "The general counsel's office will look at Martindale-Hubbell ratings relative to the type of litigation or legal matter that they need to work on, and try to match up the appropriate attorney, both in the law department as well as the claim organization of an insurance company," Conroy states. "Today they tend not to look at the firm; instead they look at the lawyers. It's prestigious to have a certain firm's name, but it's usually the lawyer within the firm who is going to be handling the matter. That's why the ratings are important, because the ratings have no application to the law firm; they have application to the individual lawyer. The general counsel who runs the corporate law department wants to make sure that he or she picks the right attorney. One of the screening criteria is to look at their rating."
Conroy has had prior experiences of incorrectly assuming a certain lawyer would handle his project. "What happened in the past was that you picked a law firm and you didn't pick a particular attorney," explains Conroy. "You could find that the matter that you thought was being handled by a senior partner was actually being handled by an associate. The company wants to be able to say to a partner that we want you to handle this and if you have to delegate it to an associate, we want to know about that associate," says Conroy.
The value of the ratings, explains Conroy, is that attorneys believe in them. "The insurance industry is an arcane industry, so people have certain perceptions. Ratings are important if the customer believes that the rating process is a credible process. Because if they don't, they're going to just throw the rating out as a consideration. But Martindale-Hubbell has a track record and a history and a screening process that has built a great deal of credibility. It's looked upon as one of the leading criteria when they try to measure the credentials of a particular lawyer."
Conroy states that others in the company will check the ratings. "You [note the ratings] for a couple of reasons. When a CEO or COO asks, 'How do I know that the lawyer you've retained is the best lawyer for this case?,' one of the things you can go back on is to say Martindale-Hubbell rates them with a certain rating. Also, you are going to get questions from the outside board, relative to the particular legal matter that the lawyer is going to handle. In many cases, the [outside] lawyer is going to have to make a presentation to the individual retaining him or her, the CEO, and the COO," says Conroy.
TIP
With a database of more than one million lawyers, attorneys may be searched by location, practice area, industry/practice groups, name, and firm on www.martindale.com.
For information on obtaining a Martindale-Hubbell rating or using the rating system, contact the ratings department at ratings@martindale.com.
The claims area of an insurance company may hire outside counsel to deal with property and casualty insurance litigation as well as with life and disability—all of which carry a high price tag. "If you're a regional or a national company, you manage a significant amount of litigation," continues Conroy. "Generally, the legal expense element of litigation is probably the single most controllable expense in the organization other than the cost of employees. So, it's a matter that gets the attention not only of the chief claims officer, but also of the business heads within the insurance company and may very well get the attention of the outside board. So if you're a company that writes directors and officers and fiduciary liability securities litigation, you want to make sure the attorney you pick to monitor any significant securities litigation is competent. One of the standards is taking a look at how they're rated by Martindale-Hubbell," he stresses.
"The rating process is not an exclusive criterion, but it is one of several criteria. It's easy to do because it's accessible online, although [the fact] that alone may not be the final decision on the selection or de-selection of an attorney. Litigation is such an expensive part of a company's controllable expenses that there are very specific guidelines, and the rating review is built into the litigation management guidelines as one of the areas that's required. Not all companies may consider ratings, or some will do it in one area and not another, but it's becoming much more prevalent today than it was 15 to 20 years ago," concludes Conroy.
Using Ratings to Build a Business
Doug Henderson is a founding partner of Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner, LLP, in Washington, DC. One of the largest international intellectual property law firms, it has 330 attorneys worldwide. "From the standpoint of ratings, we opened in 1965 and wanted to set up a full-service intellectual property firm, which was then called 'patent, trademark, and copyright law,'" says Henderson. "Obviously, we wanted to do everything first-class. We took space in one of the premier buildings in Washington, DC, and we were really trying to set ourselves up to be in a position to provide first-class service in the intellectual property field. We got a Martindale-Hubbell rating and that was huge to us in those days. We were approaching a lot of people we knew and being considered by them for possible representation and they had to evaluate our competence. It meant the world to us to have that rating. We opened in March, got the rating shortly thereafter, and had a listing in Martindale-Hubbell that January. We've always felt that it was an immense help to the firm. We've been big supporters ever since," says Henderson.
How did the rating help them? "My understanding is that many people who contacted us made note of that rating when they were looking at us," Henderson explains. "They might know us personally, but before they made a proposal to their superiors that our firm be used, they would try to gather as much information as they could. I don't think being listed in Martindale-Hubbell necessarily got us work, but if we hadn't been listed, we might have had a lot more trouble attracting clients. Many people use the rating as a sign of approval that these guys must be okay, their peers have rated them," says Henderson.
Henderson continues to check the ratings. "I use it all the time. Typically, I don't go hunting through all the AV-rated lawyers, but somebody will recommend one and I'll go look them up, and if they are AV-rated then I'll proceed. If they were not, then I'd question it," continues Henderson. "I don't know of any instance when I've gone ahead and hired a local counsel or sent a client to a lawyer who wasn't AV-rated. If a client really wanted to go to an unrated lawyer, I'd probably do more investigation to see why they weren't rated. Frequently throughout the firm, it's used as sort of a presumption. If I ask around the firm for the name of someone I should use, I presume I'll get back people who are AV-rated, and I would be surprised if I didn't. That's really how we use it and we encourage our lawyers to use it," he states.
Henderson believes new hires to the firm may not at first appreciate the benefits of being rated. "I think some of our young people coming straight from law school do not quite understand the value. Particularly in a firm like ours, we hire top-rated graduates from law school. Generally they're the top in their class and we have the work for them; we're not expecting them to attract work. When they're quite young they feel they don't have the need for a rating, but when they start to mature in the firm, they realize that they've got to start bringing in the work as well. When they reach that level, they realize a rating is indispensable."
In Henderson's firm, having a rating is a way to distinguish attorneys seeking more responsibility. "In a firm like ours, there's a transition that a young lawyer goes through. Often these attorneys have been highly sought after, even by the law schools. When they come here, we expect a lot of them. They must perform well, but at some point they begin looking to see when will they become a partner and what they can do to achieve that status. As they move up in the firm they seek more responsibility and desire to attract clients. It is then that they realize they need a rating," concludes Henderson.
Becoming Rated
Review surveys are computer-generated by Martindale-Hubbell based on the number of years since being admitted to the bar, and are sorted geographically by area of practice. Attorneys can request a review five years after being admitted to the bar.
Acceptable uses of the ratings include law firm brochures, attorney résumés, letterhead, business cards, professional announcements, and listings in other legal directories used by attorneys. The ratings icon may also be used on web sites, Martindale-Hubbell lawyer homepages, email communication, and internet banner advertisements. All permitted uses can be viewed at www.martindale.com/ratings.
Used in these manners, the venerable Martindale-Hubbell ratings can enhance image, build business, and establish credibility in a crowded legal field.
Kathleen Dreessen is a freelance writer based in Napa, California.
NOTES
- AV-Reflects an attorney who has reached the heights of professional excellence. He or she has usually practiced law for many years and is recognized for the highest levels of skill and integrity. An AV rating is a sign that a lawyer is ranked at the highest level of professional excellence.
- BV-An indication of a well-established practice, a significant client base, and high professional standing. This is an excellent rating for a lawyer with more experience than a CV rated lawyer.
- CV-A definitive statement of a lawyer's above average ability and unquestionable ethics. This is considered a good first rating.
From the November/December 2004 issue of Diversity & The Bar®