-- ChristinaYoun - 20 Feb 2008

I've looked into Vault somewhat when determining which firms to apply for this summer (not that it did me any good). What I found is that many of the rankings on Vault for the Practice Areas I'm interested in were similar to other rankings I found on the internet.

I also think that what lawyers think about each other is relevant (which would somewhat validate Vault's methodology). Although tiering can exist between firms because of this, lawyers from firms within the same tier still have to rank each other. This would mean that many of the lawyers ranking had the opportunity to get into these other firms. Hence, it can't just be that these lawyers look at where they didn't get into and rank those places better.

Since these top firms have have to rank someone first, if they all go in one direction it probably means something (although not everything). There are other valid ways to rank firms outside peer review measuring tangible attributes. However, considering many of these measures would favor size over quality and would probably disadvantage upstart and new firms, which have yet to achieve the size of the older firms. Perhaps growth could control for this somehow, but that disadvantages firms which already have 1000 lawyers.

Does anyone have any thoughts on another possible methodology for ranking instead of peer review of prestige or the tangible factors Eben has mentioned?

-- JulianBaez - 20 Feb 2008

Why have rankings at all?

-- JuliaS - 20 Feb 2008

That's what I'm wondering too, Julia. Could it just be human's neurotic, compulsive need to categorize and "know" things in a certain order as Holmes has suggested?

-- ChristinaYoun - 20 Feb 2008

Has anyone actually read how the Vault comes up with the rankings? Most of it is based on a survey of what working attorneys think are the most prestigious firms. They just tally up the votes. I suspect that a lot of the prestige comes from none other than the fact that X firm has a GPA cutoff of Y. Many lawyers are probably basing their notions of prestige on "well, I couldn't get hired there with my grades...."

I’m just wondering if prestige is really a reflection of the effort a firm puts into its image as being prestigious. After all, if you look up firms in terms of growth, net profits, number of business transactions, etc. (the tangible stuff), the top 5 most prestigious firms listed on Vault are not necessarily at the top of those lists.