Super Lawyers, owned by Thomson Reuters, is a national lawyer rating service where lawyers are ranked by a rigorous selection process. The lawyers on the site stand on a three-tiered ranking system: Super Lawyer (highest rank), Rising Star, and Lawyer.
The first stage of selecting a candidate for the Super Lawyer title is the nominations step. Here, a pool of candidates is gathered, and the candidates are chosen by peer nomination or by the Super Lawyers research department. Every year, Super Lawyers calls in lawyers from each state to get their opinions on attorneys they believe are making positive strides. While it is allowed for attorneys to nominate lawyers in their firm, the nomination can only be effective if another lawyer from outside of the firm backs it up. The lawyers that nominate cannot select themselves, and they must only nominate a candidate who is active in their state. Super Lawyers keeps track of the nominators and the nominees and search for patterns to ensure that no one is cheating the system.
After the pool has been collected, the research process begins. Super Lawyer’s research team, led by an attorney, starts to find which one of these lawyers meets the required criteria (based on credentials, certificates, honors, or results). In this process, the research team also discovers underdog lawyers with less visibility or more specialized niches and adds them to the list of candidates.
Outside of formal nominations, readers, clients, and other attorneys who are not allowed to nominate formally also send in names of candidates they would like to be included. However, these informal nominations do not award the lawyer points. But the team will further research them after adding them to their candidate pool.
For the second step, the independent research team uses a list of achievements (in unequal importance) to determine who gets shortlisted: education and employment backgrounds, experience, verdicts and settlements, transactions, pro bono and community service, law firm ranking, special licenses and certifications, honors and awards, professional activity, representative clients, scholarly writings and publications, and other noteworthy achievements.
After the points have been collated, the third step is to select based on peer evaluation by practice area. To do this, the nominees with the highest point totals are called to a blue-ribbon panel, where they rate other candidates from their field of practice on a scale of one to five.
The final selection (step four) happens after the candidates have been gathered into four firm-size groups. This allows for fairness–because those with small law firms or lawyers who practice solo are compared with each other and likewise for lawyers in big firms. Those with the highest point in the categories are then selected.
Before the winners are published, the research staff asks if they have ever been subject to criminal or disciplinary events. They also check with the nominee’s local licensing authority and see their relationship.
Lastly, they conduct web searches on the candidates to ensure that no information on them negatively affects their reputation. To verify the information and remain fair, Super Lawyers contacts the lawyer to double-check the correctness of all publicly available information.
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