Preparing for the Chambers & Partners launch of the UK Solicitors Guide 2024
10 October 2023
The Chambers & Partners launch of the 2024 UK Solicitors Guide will take place on Thursday 19 October 2023. They’ve confirmed that they received over 54,000 market responses, giving them a unique insight into the lawyers and law firms who submitted the applications.
Although we’re all waiting eagerly to find out the ranking positions, now’s the time to prepare for the launch, and to start getting ready for the 2025 submission process, which is literally just around the corner.
Here are our top tips on getting ready for the launch.
Prepare your success stories for the Chambers & Partners launch
You’ll already know from your online account, which departments and which lawyers have successfully been ranked this year. Even though you don’t yet know the Band they’ve been ranked in, you can still get your success stories prepared.
1. Review your department success stories
Take a look at the application you submitted for the department. What work highlights were included? What did the department do that would have added to their success?
2. Review your lawyer success stories
Take a look at the application you submitted, and identify what information was submitted for each successfully ranked lawyer. What did they do that went above and beyond? What would have contributed to their success? What work highlights did they contribute to?
3. Write draft articles
Now you know what contributed to the success of the departments and the lawyers, you can start writing articles or blogs about why they’ve been successful. Make sure you highlight those significant achievements. Once the Chambers & Partners launch has taken place, you’ll be able to finalise the articles quickly so they’re ready to distribute.
Plan your social media for the Chambers & Partners launch
Once Chambers & Partners launch the 2024 Solicitors Guide, there’s often a mountain of posts across social media. You often find that the same messages are being repeated, which contributes to your success being lost in a rather large crowd. Planning social media for the launch is therefore extremely important, if you want your success to be recognised.
1. Prepare a social media strategy
Prepare a social media strategy. Think about:
- What goals you’re trying to achieve
- What social media platforms will help you achieve those goals
- What social media assets will provide the best engagement
- When each post, blog, article or video should be distributed
Then, put a plan together and let the departments and lawyers see the plan. That way, they know when to look out for that content, and can like, share and contribute to the posts’ success.
2. Prepare draft social media assets
Get the assets prepared, whether they’re static images, carousels, videos or soundbites. Although you don’t yet have the ranking Band or the quotes that have been given to Chambers & Partners by clients and peers, you can still get the assets drafted.
By drafting them now, you’ll be prepared, and can simply drop in the additional information as soon as the Chambers & Partners launch takes place.
3. Advise your lawyers on their personal posts
If you’ve not already done so, tell the lawyers who you know have been ranked about their upcoming ranking. This will give them a chance to prepare their social media posts.
By giving them time to prepare their posts they can:
- Make their posts more unique, giving them a better chance of getting recognition and engagement
- Consider the social media channels they want to use, as they may want to prepare different posts for different audiences
Once the Chambers & Partners launch takes place, and they know where they’ve been ranked, they can quickly add the additional information.
Update your lawyers' website profiles before the Chambers & Partners launch
Being ranked in Chambers & Partners, regardless of the Band, is a great achievement. It can also lead to securing new clients and forming new partnerships. It’s therefore understandable that lawyers and firms will shout about their achievements through their various social media channels.
When potential clients and partners engage with posts, it’s likely that they’ll visit the lawyers’ website profiles to find out more about them. That’s why it’s important, before the Chambers & Partners launch, to make sure that your lawyers’ website profiles are up to date.
1. Review lawyers' current profiles
Ask the lawyers who are going to be ranked to review and amend their profiles. Are they portrayed in the best possible light? Are all their areas of specialism included?
2. Review the Chambers & Partners submission
Was there anything exceptional added to the Chambers & Partners application that’s not included in their website profile? Have they had award wins, spoke at events, become trustees of charities, or been accredited? If anything exceptional is missing from their website profiles, these should be added.
3. Add work highlights
If there were good cases mentioned in the Chambers & Partners application that may have led to their ranking, they may make good career highlights or case studies to include on the lawyers’ website profiles. Do remember however that you need your clients’ consent!
Review the failures as well as the successes
When you first received notification of departments and lawyers that are to be ranked, there may have been areas that you didn’t rank for. There’s no time like the present to start looking at this and trying to work out why.
When Chambers & Partners launch the 2024 Solicitors Guide on 19 October, you’ll have a limited amount of time before the submission process starts once again. This leaves little time to put a strategy in place for the next submissions.
If you already know you’re not being ranked, you don’t need to see the results before you can get to work on preparing your new strategy.
Review those submissions and compare them against those that have been ranked; What are the key differences? Can you identify why they weren’t ranked? Can you see what improvements can be made?
Once you’ve reviewed this, you can start building your strategy in advance of the next submission process.
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All content in this article was correct at the time of publication.
