New research drawing on the views of almost 80,000 law firm clients has revealed the LB100 firms that are most highly recommended by those using them, with Travers Smith, Lewis Silkin and Sacker & Partners among the top performers.
The findings are based on answers to a single question posed to Legal 500 referees as part of the research process for the annual L500 rankings – “on a scale of 0–10, how likely are you to recommend this firm?”
Of the hundreds of thousands of responses to this question, the firms ranked in the LB100 generated more than 77,000 responses, enabling the Legal 500 to re-rank them by a new Net Promoter Score (NPS) benchmark, a market research metric used to quantify client satisfaction.
NPS is calculated by taking the percentage of ‘promoters’ (respondents that score firms nine or 10) and subtracting the percentage of ‘detractors’ (those scoring firms six or less).
Looking at these NPS scores, the highest scoring firm in the LB100 is specialist pensions boutique Sacker & Partners with 82.9%, just ahead of Leigh Day (81.8%) and Scots firm Shepherd and Wedderburn (81.3%).
The top five is rounded out by Wiggin (80.5%) and Lewis Silkin (80.2%), just ahead of the highest scoring top 50 firm – Travers Smith, on 80%. At the opposite end of the scale, the lowest scoring firm received an NPS score of just 46.9%
Sackers senior partner David Saunders told Legal Business: ‘We are proud to top these rankings and immensely grateful to our clients for putting their trust in us. This demonstrates the continuing appeal of our specialist model and the strength of our deep bench of talented lawyers who combine technical expertise with a real understanding of wider market developments.’
Lewis Silkin joint managing partner Jo Farmer struck a similar note. ‘We think of our clients as part of our team – and think of ourselves as being part of theirs. We’re delighted to see that this approach is working well.’
Broader horizons: the top scoring international firms
Breaking down the LB100 into sub-groups of their closest peers offers insight into how similar firms stack up against each other.
Slaughter and May has emerged the highest scoring firm among the magic circle, with 79%, reflecting its position as the highest scoring UK firm for NPS in the Global 100, ahead of Linklaters and Clifford Chance.
Looking across all of the international firms within the LB100, the top-scoring firm is Bird & Bird on 79.1%, just ahead of HFW (78.2%) and Simmons & Simmons on 76.9%.
Bird & Bird London head Phil Sherrell told Legal Business that the results offer independent verification of the firm’s own client satisfaction research.
‘The feedback chimes with the results of our own recent client listening programme, in which our clients emphasised the quality and consistency of our advice and service, as well as the business relationships that we form with them, as particular strengths.’
‘We’re really delighted that our clients have had such positive experiences working with Bird & Bird and are particularly proud to be ranked as the best performing international law firm. In the end though, it all comes back to people; our lawyers are curious, collegiate and commercial in the advice they give, and we think that’s why our clients love working with them.’
Under one roof – London firms stand out
Breaking down the scores by firm type, London-only firms have the highest average score, with 75%.
This puts the group ahead of international firms (with an average of 72.3%) and national and regional firms, which average 71.3%. According to Saunders, this result reflects the more joined-up service on offer at firms operating from just one office.
‘One of the key advantages of all being together under one roof is our strong and inclusive culture which allows us to share knowledge effectively and really tailor our service to meet our clients’ needs.’
The benefits of a closely-knit, single-office team are also cited by Travers managing partner Edmund Reed. ‘Our people enjoy working together across specialisms, with clients whose business they know very well,’ he says. ‘That gives our clients one extra important ingredient – our teams tend to know one another personally, and so we genuinely care about getting to the best solution for them.’