Roadmap of Metrics
Our earliest Participants guided us to an initial focus on diversity and inclusion metrics.
It makes sense – legal departments and legal service providers consider it highly important and it increasingly has a direct impact on buying decisions, but yet it is very manual and sensitive to calculate diversity information and it rarely shows up on law firm dashboards. Legal Metrics is solving these gaps first.
- For legal departments, we have dashboards that assess outside counsel diversity, whether or not explicit metrics have been established
- For law firms and law companies, we provide analysis by clients’ metrics, plus various internal analysis dashboards, including:
- Top 100 client diversity analysis
- Firm diversity analysis by responsible partner
- All-attorney diversity analysis
- All-staff diversity analysis (in progress)
We are now automating industry surveys and other benchmarks.
Top ten types of metrics
Beyond diversity, our Participants ranked the following types of metrics as the most important to them. Spend and diversity were the top for legal departments, while the others varied in ranking order for all parties. They will help form the roadmap for Legal Metrics over time.
- Spend/financial
- Value
- Diversity and inclusion
- E-discovery
- Billing practices
- Staffing practices
- After-matter surveys
- Pro bono
- Net promoter score (NPS)
- Matter effectiveness
Key national or global diversity and inclusion metrics, awards, and surveys:
| Organization | Diversity Asset | Type |
|---|---|---|
| American Bar Association | Model Diversity Survey | Metrics |
| American Lawyer | Diversity Scorecard | Metrics |
| Chambers | Pioneering Firm for Female Lawyers | Award |
| Chambers | Most Inclusive Firm for LGBT+ Lawyers | Award |
| Chambers | Most Inclusive Firm for Minority Lawyers | Award |
| Chambers | Outstanding D&I Program | Award |
| Chambers | Outstanding Firm for Furthering Diversity and Inclusion | Award |
| Diversio | Social Media Perception Index | Metrics |
| Diversity Lab | Mansfield Rule Certification | Certification |
| Diversity Lab | Inclusion Blueprint Champions | Award |
| Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) | Diversity Pay Gap Reporting (UK) | Report |
| Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) | Gender Pay Gap Reporting (UK) | Report |
| Human Rights Campaign Foundation | Corporate Equality Index | Metric |
| Leopard Solutions | Various Inclusion Metrics | Metrics |
| Minority Corporate Counsel Association (MCCA) | Vault / MCCA Survey Report | Metric |
| Minority Corporate Counsel Association (MCCA) | Strategic Members | Sponsorship |
| Minority Corporate Counsel Association (MCCA) | George B. Vashon Innovator Award | Award |
| Minority Corporate Counsel Association (MCCA) | Thomas L. Sager Award | Award |
| National Association for Law Placement (NALP) | Report on Diversity | Metrics |
| National Association of Women Lawyers (NAWL) | NAWL Survey | Metrics |
| National Diversity Council | DiversityFIRST Certification | Certification |
| US News | Best Law Firms Report | Metrics |
| Vault | Overall | Metrics |
| Vault | Best Law Firms for Diversity | Metrics |
| Vault | Best Law Firms for Individuals with Disabilities | Metrics |
| Vault | Best Law Firms for LGBTQ Individuals | Metrics |
| Vault | Best Law Firms for Racial Minorities | Metrics |
| Vault | Best Law Firms for Women | Metrics |
Additional legal-specific D&I organizations
Additionally, there are many legal-specific D&I organizations with which one can be affiliated, including:
- ChIPs Advancing Women
- Diversity Lab’s Move the Needle Fund
- Lambda Legal
- Lawyers of Color
- National Association of Women Lawyers
- National Association of Minority and Women Owned Law Firms
- Spark Plug Labs’ Legal Academy on Equity and Inclusion
Other types of metrics
Beyond diversity, there are a wide range of other types of useful metrics.
| Area | Notes |
|---|---|
| Diversity and Inclusion | Publicly reported firmwide metrics (e.g., ABA, NALP, Mansfield), feedback from associates (e.g., Vault), analytics (e.g., Leopard), or client-specific metrics on the teams working for a particular legal department. |
| Pro Bono | Levels and areas of pro bono work in which a firm is engaged. Opportunities for a department to work alongside the firm. |
| Access to Justice | Levels and areas of a firm’s work to improve Access to Justice. |
| Mental Health | Engagement in addressing mental health issues for the industry in general or practices within the law firm itself. |
| Value | Calculating value requires a weighting of other metrics on this list, such as matter results, costs, client service, value added services, efficiency, time to resolve a matter, and knowledge sharing |
| Fair Pay | Results from Equal Pay / EEOC reporting |
| Employment Practices | Support for flexible working, leave policies, Good Places to Work winner, etc. in support of its employees. |
| E-Discovery / Review | Capabilities, maturity, and efficiencies in providing discovery and review services. |
| Other Value-Added Services | Technologies, non-legal services, templates, etc. that provide value beyond a traditional legal relationship. |
| Engagement with Department’s Team | Secondment, training, consulting, coaching, process review, technology assistance, or other methods of helping a client’s legal department to improve. |
| After-Matter Survey Feedback | Results from surveys sent to the department’s lawyers after each matter to gauge their perception of a firm’s results, the team, industry (or subject matter or company) knowledge, budget accuracy, or other areas. |
| Net Promoter Score | Feedback from clients on how likely they are to refer or re-use a firm. |
| Project / Matter Management | Task management proficiency, automation, project management, shared matter management systems, project templates, project manager impact, etc. |
| Matter Effectiveness | Results, quality, value, duration of time to resolve a matter, perception of complexity addressed, other measures of impact. |
| Work Product Efficiencies / Effectiveness | Ability to get started or perform diligence quickly, AI or robotic process tools that make a difference, precedent collections (potentially shared), etc. |
| Data Analytics | Insights that can be shared, early case assessment, risk and settlement analysis, analysis of issues (e.g., LIBOR). |
| Billing Practices | Budgeting accuracy, visibility of status, billing accuracy and timeliness, block billing, documentation of assumptions, risks, scope changes, etc. |
| Staffing Practices | Leverage, partner/expert engagement, consistency of team, etc. |
| Spend / Financial | Rates, level of spend, savings, value, pricing of matters or units/tasks, visibility/simplicity of pricing, risk-sharing, etc. |
| Accomplishments or League Tables | Placement on leaderboards for numbers or sizes of transactions conducted in an area. Trial wins or other litigation aspects. Awards in areas not already mentioned above |
| Am Law A-List | Am Law uses a range of criteria (profitability, association satisfaction, diversity, etc.) to calculate a small number of qualifying firms. |
| Employee Feedback | Ratings and commentary via Vault, Glassdoor, articles in Above the Law, or other services. |
| Client Relationship | Indicators of relationship strength, trends in work levels, percentage of department spend, strategic vs. commodity work, number of offices or practices engaged, etc. |
| Client / Customer Experience | Ease of onboarding, access to contacts other than a partner, responsiveness, perception of being a priority, firm’s knowledge of department’s needs, smoothness of budgeting and billing, helpfulness in selling the value of the matter to the GC, etc. |
| Brand Recognition | Brand rankings and recognition by Acritas, BTI, or other services. |
| Perception of Tech / Innovation | Involvement in or hosting hackathons, tech press releases, sponsorship of innovation events, known to use certain products / case studies, on-site demo’s of tech to clients, industry presentations, etc. |
| Law Firm Operational Metrics | Time to open or clear a matter, time / effort to respond to pitches, frequency in collecting time data, time to bill and collect, success rate of lateral partners, time to onboarding new employees, etc. |
| Risk / Security | Compliance (e.g., ISO 27001, GDPR, CCPA), answers to custom risk RFI, lack of prior breach or encryption event, etc. |
Share your feedback
While these lists are not meant to be comprehensive, your feedback, additions, or corrections to these lists is welcome. Please use the contact form below to contact us.
