The Chambers & Partners directory in the days when it was printed
A high-profile barrister has attacked “secret soundings” taken by a leading legal directory after discovering she had been bad-mouthed behind her back.
In response, Chambers & Partners said its rankings were not affected “by a small number of uncorroborated opinions”.
In an interview with Legal Futures published today, Charlotte Proudman said she had discovered that researchers “will speak to random barristers or solicitors, supposedly as part of their background checks”.
She said: “Even if they’ve never worked with you, never even met you, but have a strong opinion, [the researchers] will take that into account in deciding what ranking you are or even if you’re ranked at all.”
Dr Proudman has attracted a lot of publicity in recent years for her strong feminist views and at the end of last year a Bar disciplinary tribunal found she had no case to answer over tweets she sent criticising the decision of a case she had acted in.
She is not ranked by Chambers & Partners but is a tier 3 junior in the Legal500 in the ‘Family: children and domestic abuse’ category. Chambers does not have a matching category, although it does have a ‘children’ section.
She said she paid Chambers £650 for a copy of the research on her. “It was just three pages of gratuitous and offensive comments written by other professionals that I apparently work alongside.
“No idea who they are – I would like to know – but some of the things they wrote about me, I’m shocked they included it in there, let alone took it into account.
“It was the kind of material you would see on Twitter – derogatory, disparaging, personal attacks, not evidence-based, not ‘I worked with her in X case and this happened’. Just general views from people who had heard of me and formed an opinion, which were deeply unpleasant and very upsetting to read.”
The barrister, who practises from Goldsmith Chambers, said she wrote back to express her shock that this feedback was both collected and taken into account, but did not receive a substantive response.
“I find it incredible that secret soundings are still going on in our profession because it means that people who are doing good work but are not liked or even abused and attacked, effectively end up blacklisted, which is the antithesis of transparency and a meritocracy. It’s awful.”
In a statement, Chambers & Partners said: “Chambers’ research methodology is unrivalled in its depth and independence.
“We reviewed over 57,000 interviews and survey responses to determine our UK rankings. We also accepted over 10,000 submissions from law firms and barristers’ sets, which provides a foundation of factual information that supports our comparative rankings.
“Our commentary is curated from interviews and survey responses with the market and client referees supplied by the submitting lawyer or firm. Every submission is analysed by our dedicated, highly trained team.
“All feedback is considered; however, rankings will not be affected by a small number of uncorroborated opinions. Rankings are not determined by individual researchers alone, but through review with our senior research team. This is to ensure that every decision is made fairly and without bias.
“Our Insight reports provide trusted data and performance analytics to help users understand the comparative ranking process. All feedback is anonymous, so that our many thousands of research participants can provide honest feedback when asked.”
Lady Bracknall – a **tier 3 junior** ?!?!