McGuireWoods Ranked Fourth in BTI Power Rankings

Clients Cite Strong Relationships With Firm and Readily Recommend It to Peers

June 30, 2016

McGuireWoods is among the top four law firms with the strongest client relationships and one of the firms that corporate legal decision makers most highly recommend to their peers, according to BTI Consulting Group’s 2016 Power Rankings, based on objective, unprompted feedback from corporate counsel.

McGuireWoods ranked fourth in BTI’s Clientopia 24, an exclusive group of two dozen firms that enjoy such close relationships with their clients that they are the first firms those clients recommend to their peers. McGuireWoods enjoyed “Clientopia” relationships, which BTI defines as “the ideal state of a client relationship,” in six different industry segments — banking, consumer goods, manufacturing, retail trade, utilities and wholesale trade — the second most of any firm listed. The Power Rankings are based on 322 in-depth interviews with senior legal decision makers and on trend data from more than 4,000 interviews with corporate counsel over the past 16 years. Recently, McGuireWoods also was among a handful of firms BTI named to its 2016 Most Recommended Law Firms list, further affirming the deep trust that McGuireWoods lawyers have built through years and even decades of excellent client service.

Studies by BTI and other independent researchers show that corporate counsel overwhelmingly value peer-to-peer recommendations most in choosing outside counsel. BTI research shows that only 40 percent of clients surveyed are willing to recommend their primary firm to a peer. Nearly two-thirds of corporate counsel say superlative service is the chief differentiator of firms they recommend, a characteristic they cited five times more often than the second most-cited factor — expertise.

“Our lawyers always focus on our clients and this survey provides excellent validation for which we are very pleased,” said Richard Cullen, chairman of McGuireWoods.

As part of its Power Rankings research, BTI also asked clients to name their core “go-to” firms and their most recommended firms by industry, each grouped by 16 industry sectors. McGuireWoods was honored as a core firm in 11 sectors, placing it third among 513 firms. And McGuireWoods was named a most recommended firm in 10 sectors, placing fourth among 398 firms.