Why Law Firm Rankings Are Useless

First, I'm a 7th year corporate lawyer.

Second, of course I would look at it. However, it would not be dispositive and I would likely discount it super, super highly. I have vastly superior data about the winnability of my case as a result of being the attorney on the case than I would knowing the 'win' ratio of my opponents law firm - which is almost totally irrelevant to the case at hand. Ceteris paribus, bad lawyering loses more cases than good lawyering wins cases. This in mind, the thing to know is whether or not your opponent is a bozo or competent. Regardless of your opponent's competence, you act as if he is at least as smart as you and I would litigate as hard against Ted Olsen as I would someone no one has ever heard of. The controlling factors come down to your client's budget, your opponents budget, the animus they have toward each other and, lastly, the facts.

Additionally, channel checks that I perform on opposition attorneys are far, far more sophisticated than algorithmically computed win rates. Maybe I'd use it as a data point, but the frank reality is that I have far better means at my disposal for judging the merits of a case and the efficacy of my litigation opponents including google, the phone on my desk and my judgment. Law is a very close-knit and reputationally driven profession. I do channel checks on opposing counsel frequently. It is an extraordinarily rare situation where I cannot get a second opinion, from someone who's judgment I trust, on another law firm or another lawyer when I really need one.

Finally, what is missing from this whole consideration is that law suits are not fair fights and they are highly fact and context dependent. Not every game has the same rules, the rules and the facts may be skewed. Does it matter if a particular NFL team is last in the league if they are going to be playing a HS JV team in freeze-tag? Accordingly, it is not like the win ratio of a poker player or a football team. The case itself very often is going to have a huge skew in favor of one opponent or another. If I had a winning case and you told me that my opponents were Abraham Lincoln's Zombie and Scalia's ghost, I'd still fight it.

Let's make an analogy: Let's look at batting averages as a predictor of general sports ability. But instead of confining the batting averages to major league players and major league pitchers, let's make it the life-time batting average of every American over the age of 18, for every game of stick-ball, alley-ball and beer league softball they have ever played in their lives, referreed or not, as a predictor of their ability to play "sports" generally, regardless of their age.

I think that is a fairer analogy to the 'win' ratio for trial dispositions.

Are you speaking hypothetically, i.e., 'if I was a lawyer'? I'm not an attorney but for a variety of reasons I have relatively deep insight into the legal industry, and I think this statement is generally not true.

As in any field, most business comes from referrals and networking, and much of that happens within a firm. If your career is at a top firm then you are going to build a much different network than a similar attorney who opens their own office in a strip mall. When Goldman Sachs needs an outside attorney, where do they go and who do they ask? Even ignoring referrals, just imagine who is there when you are invited to dinner by your colleague: Is it the mayor and local Fortune 500 CEO, one of whom takes a liking to you and asks you to join the board of a local charity, or is it the lovely neighbors who drive Uber or run a small medical practice, and ask for some legal tips?

Personally, I don't enjoy the hunt for status and I think it impedes socio-economic mobility, but I'm afraid that's the way it works.

All real-world analysis (especially for observational studies) rests on certain assumptions. It is always true that these assumptions might be wrong, but it is important to think about whether or not the assumption is plausible. It seems plausible that on average, a lawyer who is able to get better outcomes when they don't settle is also able to get better outcomes when they do settle.

Furthermore, even if most cases are settled, the rare cases that do go to trial can have an outsized impact. Usually people settle because a bad judgment is devastating (as well as not wanting to pay legal costs).