The Legal Industry in 2021, The Awarded Law Firms & Law Firms' Success
Editorial – The Legal Industry in 2021, The Awarded Law Firms & the Law Firms' Success.
Published on Saturday, 30th October 2021 – 04:17:43 pm by Mario P. Proença
Reading time: 5 minutes | Word count: 1306 words
The Lawyers Global has released on October 29, 2021, the 2021 Annual Legal Award Winners and Outstanding law firms complete list for the four awards categories – Country Awards, Sub-Region Awards, Continent Awards, and Global Awards.
On behalf of all The Lawyers Global® team, I’m pleased to congratulate all the awarded law firms for their achievements.
Our team has worked hard, especially the last two weeks of October, to release the awards results not only on time but even before the predicted schedule.
Now, it’s time to savor all achievements, to look ahead, focus on what we’ve learned, and plan for the future using the new and more robust tools we’ve employed to build our ways here.
Certificates, Badges, and Trophies
Law firms that are eligible to receive their bespoke signed certificates and award digital badge packages free of charge will begin receiving them in the second half of November 2021.
The bespoke Crystal Trophy is an option for law firms that wish to exhibit the Prize Trophy in their offices, which must be requested online. To know more and see some examples and features of the crystal trophy, visit our online shop page.
Law Firm’s websites, Legal Compliance, and Security
Some issues need to be addressed by law firms with their digital presence. One of the issues is the lack of legal compliance with consumer protection acts. About 70% of the law firms do not have in place the legally required information: Privacy Policies, Terms of Service, Disclaimers, and Cookie Policies.
Concerning the response to clients’ inquiries through their website contact forms, many do not reply at all or in due time. It is essential to remind that competitors are a few clicks away, and clients will search for other firms, meaning that the former law firm will lose business.
Many law firms have their websites built on ready-made insecure frameworks (templates), which I will not mention names as they are widely known. Saving a few bucks today might cost a law firm thousands of dollars in the future due to security breaches, hacking that many only notice the issues when suddenly it all breaks or clients’ data is exposed.
The above examples are only a few that we also take into account in our ranking algorithm. Above all, law firms should address the minimum security and compliance issues to stand out from their competitors and earn trust from their clients.
The Legal Industry in 2021
Many of this year’s most prominent lateral moves of leading partners from one law firm to another took place in an attempt to build up the hiring firm’s value to attract big clients. The "early to bed early to rise work like hell and advertise" is not enough anymore. Law firms need to identify their skills, abilities, brand and human capital value, then polish them. Advertising makes even more sense because the competition is no longer miles away—the competition is now a few clicks away.
This year, we’ve witnessed unusual activity amongst law firms worldwide. With law firms winning large deals, lateral moves, fee cuts, lowering employees’ bonuses, and then the contrary, from work from home to back to the office or maybe not, opening offices in strategic jurisdictions following global market trends, introducing new and different practices to their business, the race in innovation, and much more.
It turns out that if all this extreme activity affected rankings, it also sent a clear sign that the industry is now doing in a hurry what should have started years ago, yet still, a long way to go.
Legal Rankings and Global Visibility
Since late 2019 we have all faced numerous challenges, at all levels, that tested our resilience as individuals and as businesses to arrive where we stand today – "When the going gets tough, the tough get going." When there are problems or challenges, people and organizations need to be strong, work hard to solve them to succeed. It happened as we were able to witness with most law firms and with our company.
Law firms have finally understood how important it is to get noticed globally and be found by clients looking for their services, even when they are on the opposite side of the planet.
There’s a new discussion going on about law firms being listed, ranked, or awarded and how it’s worth the investments in memberships. These discussions are merely serving hidden agendas of a few organizations.
The fact is that people look for references, recommendations, and recognition which translates to brand value and brand awareness. When you need to get quick answers online, where do you go first? Google, Bing, and other search engines, right?... Keep reading below to understand how it all works and how law firms, do in fact, benefit from "cross-linking" and being part of trusted law firms’ directories.
Major Search Engines, such as Google, Bing, and others, browse our platform several times a day to index all our listed law firms, directories, firm profiles, content, and more. Our sitemap is updated every day and submitted to search engines.
Whenever there’s a new law firm or a change in content, our team requests the search engines to reindex the respective pages. This action keeps our links fresh, and it also increases our search engine rankings and consequently the law firm’s visibility and their search engine ranking.
Your law firm links are on our platform, though they are on search engines for prospective clients to find your business. Try to search for the best law firms in your country on Google, and if your law firm is on our platform, it will appear on top. If not, your competitors will, meaning you’re losing business. It’s that simple.
The new Annual Legal Awards application system
Before announcing the 2021 awards, we implemented a new system that offers law firms a range of options that at the same time allows law firms to apply to our Annual Legal Awards program.
The new Membership Plans for law firms offer greater flexibility in terms of costs and specific features tailored to the goals and budgets of each law firm. From the simple listing - Basic Membership Plan to the Platinum Membership Plan (also known as the Recommended Law Firm), the new plans are available at more affordable prices while also offering more features.
We listened to our clients and studied the market, and we’re able now to offer law firms a set of membership plans that give a greater return on investment while subscribing to one of our new membership plans.
It’s now easier to stand out from your competitors, more flexible in a fully online process with no immediate or advance payments. Only after our approval, we’ll send your law firm the invoice and payment details. This method grants our clients higher confidence in the entire process.
Now is most certainly the best time to start and get your law firm listed on a globally trusted platform – The Lawyers Global®. To learn more about the Membership Plans and Pricing, click here.
Again, congratulations to all Awarded Law Firms, wishing the best successful outcomes for 2022.
Mario P. Proença
Founder, CEO, and Managing Partner
The Lawyers Global®
Connecting Law Firms and Clients Worldwide
About the author
Mario P. Proença
Founder, CEO & Managing Partner
Mario founded The Lawyers Global®, back in 2017, and is currently the organization's CEO, and Managing Partner. Mario manages The Lawyers Global® teams and the company's departments. He also makes the liaison with high-end clients, as well as represents the company in worldwide events.
