U.S. News to Rank Law Firms

The U.S. News & World Report, immensely influential in education for its rankings, has announced that its October 2010 issue will include a ranking of more than 5,000 law firms in more than 125 legal practice areas.  Will mass tort litigation be ranked as a subject area?  Probably, given that U.S. News & World Report has teamed up for the ranking with Best Lawyers, which itself has "mass tort litigation" as a practice area category.  Here's the Best Lawyers press release, and here's an excerpt from the U.S. News announcement:

The ranking projects continue to make progress on the collection of client references and associate references from law firms. The vast majority of America's major law firms have provided the requested information. As with other rankings published by U.S. News, we believe that we will be able to secure from various sources quantitative data concerning those law firms that do not provide the requested statistical data directly to U.S. News and Best Lawyers. Combined with the qualitative reviews of the firms by clients —more than 50,000 client references have already been accumulated—and qualitative peer-reviews by leading lawyers, this will enable the publication of valid rankings for all major law firms, both large and small, across the United States in the inaugural year. In time, it is expected that an increasing number of the ranked law firms will participate in the process.

BGS