PSMG has been a strong supporter of both Legal 500 and Chambers & Partners over many years and their decisions to extend their research and submission windows during these unprecedented times will come as a very welcome news to marketing teams which are having to adjust at speed to the new environment around us.  On behalf of everyone in our industry, a deep thank you to them for the flexibility they are showing.

Statement from Chambers and Partners

As we continue to navigate the various challenges being presented by COVID-19 we remain committed to ensuring we provide guidance to all of our research contacts and clients across the world.

We appreciate the complexities being caused by COVID-19 and are working closely with firms and referees during these unprecedented times. We are also sensitive to the issues that many firms and businesses are facing and will continue to be flexible wherever possible. For that reason we have decided to make the following changes to submissions deadlines for the  USA   and  Europe    guides: 

• Chambers USA 2021    - submissions which are usually due in early June will now be due on  23rd July  .
• Chambers Europe    2021   - submissions deadline on 13th May will now be extended to  17th June.   

However, as European research is underway and we currently have good engagement from our research contacts, please endeavour to provide the relevant referee spreadsheets by 13th May to support these submissions if at all possible.   

In addition, we thought it would be helpful to provide you with an FAQ document that we hope will give guidance on other key areas of research. You can find this document  here. 

Thank you for your continued support and please let us know how we can support you during this time. Please do not hesitate to contact  enquiries@chambers.com  should you have any questions.

Statement from Legal 500 

The Legal 500 understands that, at present, law firms’ ability to communicate effectively with clients is under immense stress, as are firms’ own systems dealing with remote working infrastructure and staff availability.

The last thing we want to do at this challenging time is to add more noise to your relationships with clients. Accordingly, we are making the decision today to  suspend all client feedback surveys globally for 4 weeks  , to allow firms and clients a chance to get their essential services and communications back up and running.

Our scheduled law firm interview window will also change to take into account the pressure that law firms are under to set up their staff for remote working. Our research schedule will now be as follows.

Research processes for London solicitors and the London Bar (The Legal 500 UK) will be  suspended until 30 April  . In addition to the suspension of client research set out above, we will be extending the interview period by three weeks, to allow greater flexibility for firms who may struggle to coordinate personnel – so our research period will  now end on 26 June  . (Our research for firms and The Bar outside of London has now largely concluded with the exception of some scheduled interviews agreed with firms and sets).

We will be adding a similar extension to the interview period for firms in Latin America, which will now conclude on 22nd of May  , four weeks later than scheduled. While many firms have happily arranged to help with our research within the pre-existing schedule, and research is ongoing according to the availability and partners and practices concerned, we hope that added flexibility allows firms that need more time to participate in the research.

To be clear – no firms will be penalised in rankings or coverage for taking advantage of this increased flexibility, and we will take into account all client feedback we are able to obtain during the revised schedule.

We will continue to assess the ongoing impact of the Covid-19 outbreak on future research projects, including Asia Pacific, United States, Deutschland and EMEA in the weeks and months ahead, and we are committed to offering equivalent levels of flexibility to firms and their clients in the weeks and months ahead.