Podcast Summary

Podcast: Emerging Litigation Podcast
Episode: An Innovative New Law Firm Self-Ranking Tool with Molly Huie and Sara Lord
Date: January 26, 2026
Host: Tom Hagy
Guests: Molly Huie (Bloomberg Law), Sara Lord (Reed Smith)

Episode Overview

This episode explores Bloomberg Law’s new “Leading Law Firms” survey—a free, interactive, and holistic law firm ranking tool that goes beyond traditional metrics. Host Tom Hagy discusses the tool’s data-driven, multidimensional approach with Molly Huie, who leads Bloomberg’s rankings team, and Sara Lord, Head of Strategic Insights at Reed Smith. The conversation illuminates how the tool offers insights into innovation, growth, and more, potentially transforming how law firms—and those assessing them—gauge success.

Main Discussion and Insights

Rethinking How Firms Are Ranked

• Traditional law firm rankings focus on size, revenue, and win rates.
• Bloomberg Law’s “Leading Law Firms 2026” survey introduces four pillars:
  • Financial strength
  • Talent (headcount, growth)
  • Innovation
  • Business strategy
• “It’s interactive, it’s multidimensional. I think it’s really different than anything else that’s out there right now.” – Molly Huie [04:36]

The Tool: Interactive Data and Holistic Metrics

• The tool is front-end interactive, letting users sort and compare firms across all four pillars.

• Each law firm gets a dashboard:

  • Metrics like profits per partner, revenue per attorney, starting associate salary
  • Visualization tools, including scatter plots to compare revenue and staff ratios [05:57]

• “You can look at financial strength, headcount or talent, growth, and business strategy and innovation each separately. ... When you sort, the listing of law firms in the interactive sorts.” – Molly Huie [05:57]

Data Collection: Transparency and Collaboration

• Submission-based: Only data that firms proactively submit via a questionnaire is published.

• The process is collaborative—firms can update their data within a submission window.

• Sensitive data, like certain growth and innovation details, is aggregated for scoring but not attributed to specific firms to protect confidentiality. [07:37, 09:14]

• “It is, you can go in and out, update your data in the window that it's available. We work really closely with firms ... it's a really collaborative process.” – Molly Huie [07:37]

Who Is This For?

• Primary Users: Business development, PR, marketing professionals at law firms

• Others: Law students, law schools (interested in salary/compensation data), and anyone benchmarking firms [08:26, 11:50]

• “Firms always want to be on top of a list...something to include in their pitch decks.” – Molly Huie [08:26]

Access and Visibility

• Interactive data visualizations are behind the Bloomberg Law paywall; however, some related stories (e.g., on associate salary and top innovations) are accessible for free to attract interest. [09:14, 14:47]

• “It is free to submit data. It is free to be included on the list. It is free to get your press kit...” – Molly Huie [13:56]

Differentiators—in the Saturated “Rankings” Market

• Emphasizes holistic views—all key firm performance categories in one platform

• Data exploration: Users can benchmark, analyze trends, and compare peer groups easily

• Free participation—countering the "legal rankings industrial complex" that monetizes badges and award ceremonies [10:54, 13:56]

• “You don't have to go to four or five different places to try to get the same picture.” – Molly Huie [10:54]

• “We do not. In fact, that is one of the hallmarks.” (on charging fees) – Molly Huie [13:56]

Spotlight on Innovation

• The tool is evolving—a broader and deeper look at firm innovation is coming in the next iteration. Examples:
  • Current: Checklist (data analytics, warehousing, use of firm/client data)
  • Next: More on tech stacks, actual innovation metrics, AI usage, KPIs
  • “We are not making people spend three months filling out a whole bunch of gobbledygook.” – Molly Huie [20:30]
  • “We're really figuring out a way to say this firm is a leader now and is setting themselves up to be a leader 5, 10, 15 years in the future.” – Molly Huie [21:37]

Organizational Structure: Big and Small

• Data is split by firm size (over/under $500M in revenue) to ensure smaller and boutique firms are highlighted. “We did a revenue split, and the interactive graphics are split between firms with $500 million or more in revenue and those under that threshold...” – Molly Huie [15:25]

Real-World Use Cases

• Business Development Example:
  • A small firm’s development officer can see their innovation ranking, compare to peers, and use results for marketing or pitches.
• Managing Partners:
  • Use it to benchmark against close competitors, focusing on specific metrics like innovation or growth [25:10, 26:12]

Flexibility and the Future

• Survey evolves each year, adapting to new definitions of innovation and changes in legal practice
• Potential challenge: How to assess alternative legal service providers or AI-first firms—a “hurdle for the future” [22:32, 23:11]

Notable Quotes & Moments

• On the ranking industry:

  • “I call it the legal rankings industrial complex... for that, you know, we'll give you, we'll sell you a badge that you can put on your LinkedIn, your webpage for a thousand, $2,000.” – Tom Hagy [12:52]

• On Bloomberg’s approach:

  • “We do not. In fact, that is one of the hallmarks. It is free to submit data. It is free to be included on the list. It is free to get your press kit...” – Molly Huie [13:56]

• On meaningful innovation data:

  • “We're really trying to only capture the metrics that matter.” – Molly Huie [20:30]

• On how the tool is used:

  • “They can figure out ways to tout their accomplishments. ...They can look at who's around them.” – Molly Huie [25:10]

• On survey adaptability:

  • “We are definitely in the camp of evolving with the industry is a good thing.” – Molly Huie [21:37]

• Comic Relief:

  • “Free. Free. Free.” – Sara Lord [14:14]
  • Teapot tangent, jokes about the “four kinds” of tea and “Darth Vader” breathing [16:30–19:19]
  • Running bird references: “Wing person,” “Tweety Tom.” [27:12]

Timestamps of Key Segments

• [04:36] – What “Leading Law Firms” is and how it differs
• [05:57] – Interactive features and user experience
• [07:37] – How data is collected and handled
• [09:14] – Data visibility, confidentiality, and publication
• [10:54] – Differentiators vs. other rankings
• [11:50] – Users beyond law firm staff
• [13:56] – Bloomberg’s free participation policy
• [15:25] – How firm sizes are highlighted
• [19:46] – Innovation and technology metrics
• [21:37] – Adapting metrics, especially innovation, over time
• [22:32] – Applicability to new legal services models
• [25:10] – Use cases for business development/managing partners

Conclusion

Bloomberg Law’s Leading Law Firms survey represents a refreshing, data-driven departure from conventional legal rankings, prioritizing transparency, innovation, usability, and free participation. As law firms continue to be measured on traditional and emergent qualities, this tool offers forward-looking ways for firms of all sizes to benchmark, compete, and chart their future.

The episode’s lively, lighthearted tone reinforces the podcast’s mission: to candidly explore how the legal industry is evolving—and how tools like this may shape its trajectory.