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

Screenshot of three dashboard views for law firms and legal departments.

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

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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.

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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.