I feel so old. Let me explain to the young people out there -- back a million years ago, law firms had law libraries. No matter how small the library, there were two shelves reserved for big brown books called "the Martindale-Hubbell." These books were directories that listed attorneys by state. The books were published annually, and one of the great moments of the spring of my first year practicing was seeing my name in the Martindale-Hubbell! Each state volume also had a synopsis of various laws in that jurisdiction. Baker Botts wrote the Texas one, and a rite of passage for young associates was to update the M-H. Any errors by now are surely not mine.
The M-H was valuable to others besides lawyers seeking local counsel, etc. Headhunters seemed to have copies of the M-H. One of the more curious things about the M-H was that it listed the birth place of each attorney, as if this was relevant information. So you always knew when headhunters had your M-H entry in front of them. My husband was born in San Francisco, although his family returned to Texas when he was an infant. But he would still get calls from headhunters that began "So, I see you were born in California. Do you have any interest in returning there?"
Law.com is reporting that for the first time, major law firms are opting out of the M-H, which is also now online. These law firms are investing a lot of resources into their own websites, and they find that Google gets clients there quicker than the clunky M-H search engine. Also, the M-H is very expensive for big firms; at $200 per attorney, Baker & Mackenzie would spend $600k a year. But the sad part of this story is not the obsolescence of a product. The sad part is that the M-H is looking to revamp by adding rankings! Because mere listing of information adds no value anymore, value must be added by collecting survey information and ranking its one million law firms! This is sure to be scientific, I'm sure!
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1. Posted by Jeff Lipshaw on May 21, 2007 @ 7:38 | Permalink
There always were ratings (not rankings), but they were kind of mysterious. I got a letter several years into my career advising me that I had obtained an "AV" rating. I also used to get lists of lawyers on whom I was supposed to comment, so I assume somebody at M-H used comments like that to do the rating. I was never sure whether to take it seriously or view it as akin to being included in the "Who's Who."
My guess is that M-H sees an opportunity to redirect itself into what Chambers is already doing. The Chambers volumes, which are hard copy and widely distributed, rank not all lawyers, but the top lawyers and firms, by city and by specialty, into three tiers, and have gossipy kinds of commentary on the lawyers, italicizing the direct quotes, like "Joe Smith goes the extra mile for clients." I wonder if M-H sees a niche for doing rankings of smaller firms in smaller cities?
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