Why Law Firm Rankings Are Useless • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Law Firm Rankings Are Useless

#61

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Sep 16, 2016, 1:37 AM UTC

libertymcateer wrote: post #41

downandout wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This metric is totally useless. You honestly believe that an opponent won't take a 90%+ trial win rate into consideration when considering a settlement? All you hear from lawyers pretrial is "our chances at trial are X" and then based on whether X is high or low, they'll make a decision to go to trial or settle.

> You honestly believe that an opponent won't take a 90%+ trial win rate into consideration when considering a settlement? 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 th…

[deleted]

Re: Why Law Firm Rankings Are Useless

#62

Post by rrr298 » Fri, Sep 16, 2016, 1:42 AM UTC

busterarm wrote: post #28

libertymcateer wrote: post #4

> By applying machine learning algorithms to data mined from court judgments... And, with that sentence, this post becomes bullshit. The overwhelming majority of disputes do not reach litigation. The overwhelming majority of litigation does not reach judgment. And then a gigantic proportion of those judgments are appealed, and a non-trivial percentage are overturned. Even at that, only on the order of a single digit-…

> This is particularly shocking given that litimetrics is a legal service provider. Not so shocking. Law firm ranking services are their competition. They drew a conclusion from the data that supports their business. Law firm rankings absolutely can provide a value. Both on the firm and client side of the transaction. Imagine you're on the client side of a qui tam (Whistleblower) or Immigration case. Are you going to…

Rankings seem to be very subjective and to be a function of firm biz dev teams: http://www.chambersandpartners.com/submissions

Size of marketing team might correlate with success/positive market perception though.

Re: Why Law Firm Rankings Are Useless

#63

Post by Digory » Fri, Sep 16, 2016, 3:08 AM UTC

spitfire wrote: post #15

Why not use a modified Elo rating? That way you can not only easily figure out if you're going to win, but simulate the outcome of different scenarios?

The problem is the second assumption of Elo's system, per wikipedia: "if a player wins a game, he is assumed to have performed at a higher level than his opponent for that game. Conversely, if he loses, he is assumed to have performed at a lower level."

But you can't assume that about lawsuits. If the client should have paid ten million in damages, the better lawyer might limit the award to nominal damages. But the same nominal damages loss might be a disaster in another case the lawyer should have won.

Lawsuits aren't zero-sum, bilateral agreements to compete like most sports. Parties aren't just competing for a 'win,' but looking to maximize gain or minimize loss.

Re: Why Law Firm Rankings Are Useless

#64

Post by sjdchid » Fri, Sep 16, 2016, 5:49 AM UTC

steveeq1 wrote: post #57

soufron wrote: post #31

I worked on applying machine learning algorithms to data mined from court judgments during my PhD. You want to know what we learned? That it's better to be white and rich than black and poor. Point. Everything else was bullshit.

What about black and rich vs white and poor?

Sample size too small I'd guess.