It comes as no surprise you would like to find out how a lawyer earns this distinction. Lawyers who want to remain at the top of their field must consistently outperform their competition year after year. Lawyers from law firm of all sizes are eligible to be nominated as a Super Lawyer.
According to the Super Lawyers official website, lawyers must be nominated to inherit the Super Lawyers distinction. It’s a patented multi-phase selection process aimed at providing the public with the best pool of nominated lawyers in your area. By taking into account a lawyer’s experience, knowledge and caseload history, the Super Lawyers list is proven to be thorough, credible and diverse. Consumers are not the only individuals interested in a list of outstanding lawyers. An attorney’s office can use the list to find legal counseling and co-counseling. The list includes both public and private lawyers and legal aid attorneys.
To go through the selection process, first lawyers must be nominated. Lawyers are nominated by their peers in the legal industry for a number of reasons, most notably their knowledge in the industry and by applying that knowledge represented in their history of handling and winning challenging cases. Lawyers in the state of New Mexico for example are tasked with nominating top attorneys they’ve observed in action while practicing law. Lawyers who nominate peers at their own firm are eligible for votes if they match it with an out-of-firm nomination. Each nomination carries a point value that can add up towards a Super Lawyer selection.
In order to make sure the process is fair, the Super Lawyers system keeps track of who nominates who to prevent unauthorized nominations. Lawyers from the same law firm are prohibited from making identical nominations. A large number of nominations does not guarantee selection however.
Super Lawyers staff does research on lawyers who have received special honors or distinctions. The Super Lawyers staff reviews databases and online sources to discover and confirm these recognition’s. Many lawyers that have been overlooked by these nominations are discovered by the Super Lawyers team. Examples include lawyers from smaller firms or very small communities.
Step two of the Super Lawyer process is the research phase. In no particular order the research department evaluates the lawyers that are candidates on areas such as verdicts won and settlements, transactions, who the lawyer has represented, their experience practicing law, their honors, and special licenses, state bar activity, community service, pro bono representation, scholarly writings and education.
The next step is the peer review process. High scoring lawyers that have the most points for a certain practice area are asked to serve on a panel. Each panelist is expected to review a list of candidates and rate them.
The final step is grouping candidates into four categories. The lawyers with the highest number of points from each category are selected. Only small firm lawyers are compared with other small lawyers and larger firm lawyers are compared with other larger firm lawyers.
Each candidate is reviewed to see if they have the credentials that have been recorded. This includes checking licensing standards through the local licensing authority. We work with lawyers in the top 5% of lawyers in the New Mexico. To get a Super Lawyer for your case please contact us today.