How listings are found, checked and ordered

Derived labels

Some listings carry short labels and counts. Each one is worked out by a fixed rule from the sourced facts above. Nobody sets a label by hand, and a label never affects the order of a list.

Footprint

Counted from the listed offices, where a city and state count once. Single office: one office. Regional: two or more offices, all in one state. Multi-state: offices in two to four states. National: offices in five or more states. The bars beside the label show the same four steps.

Focus

Counted from the practice areas the firm's site states. Specialist: one or two practice areas. Generalist: five or more. Firms with three or four, or none stated, get no focus label.

Search model

From the search types the firm's site states. Retained, Contingency or Retained and contingency when it states permanent search of that kind. Contract and tempwhen contract or temporary placement is the only type stated; when it is stated alongside permanent search, the listing says “also contract and temp”. No label when none is stated.

About paragraph

The short “About” paragraph on a firm page is generated from the listing, never written by hand. It restates the offices, the practice areasand levels the firm's site states, its search model and founding year, and the date we last checked the site. A sentence whose facts are not stated is left out, and the paragraph says which facts the site did not state.

Name variants

“Also searched as” lists forms of the firm's name made by fixed rules: dropping a corporate suffix (LLC, Inc.) or a trailing trade description (“Legal Search”) when two or more words remain; splitting a joined name at its capitals; the initials of a name of three or more words, only when the firm's own web address starts with them; and the firm's web address read as words. A variant is shown only when it adds a word the name does not already contain. Variants are not a claim about how the firm styles itself.

Years in business

Shown only when the founding year is stated: the year the listing was last checked minus the founding year.

Logos

Taken from the firm's own website (its app icon, site icon or header logo), or from the site icon Google shows for the firm's domain when the site offers none. We skip images that are too small, blank, or shared by several firms (website-builder defaults), and marks that belong to someone else, such as association or client logos. Without a usable logo, a listing shows the first letters of the firm's name on a color picked from its web address. Firms can send a better logo when they claim their listing.

Compare table and related firms

A firm page compares the firm with up to four other firms that have an office in the metro of its first listed office, in the directory's published order. When fewer than two firms qualify, a second table lists firms sharing its first practice area. The lists under it (more firms in that metro, then firms sharing that practice area in the same state, then, only if a page still links to fewer than eight firms, other firms in the state and firms placing the same level) follow the same order. No firm appears twice on a page, and no firm is placed by hand.

Map links

Each office has a “Map” link. It is a Google Maps search for the firm's name in that city, not an address we publish.

Derived numbers

Metro, state and practice area pages compare places, never firms. Each comparison follows a fixed rule.

Market figures

Market figures on metro pages come from BLS QCEW (NAICS 5411, legal services). “Rank” is the metro's position among all tracked metros on that figure, largest first; tied metros share a rank. “x the median metro” divides the metro's figure by the median of all tracked metros. Average annual wage is the average weekly wage times 52.

Top markets

“Top markets” on a practice area page are the 8 metro areas with a page that have the most listed firms tagged with that practice area; ties are listed A to Z. The table on the practice areas index uses the 8 metro areas with the most listed firms of any kind.

Nearby markets

Other metro areas with a page in the same state, closest first, then metro areas in neighboring states until there are three.

Map dots

Each dot is sized so its area is proportional to the number of listed firms with an office in the metro.

Market figures in sentences

Ranks use competition ranking: a tie shares the better rank. “x the median metro” compares a figure with the median of all tracked metros, and within 5% reads “about the median metro”. Employers per 1,000 jobs is establishments divided by jobs times 1,000, compared with the median of the same ratio across tracked metros. A metro's share of its state is its jobs over the summed jobs of the tracked metros whose page belongs to that state, shown only when there are two or more. The change from a year earlier is the percent change BLS publishes for the same quarter of the previous year, shown only when BLS publishes it.

State totals

A state page sums jobs and employers over the tracked metros whose page belongs to that state. Its average wage is weighted by jobs: the sum of each metro's jobs times its average weekly wage, divided by their total jobs, times 52. States are ranked by the summed jobs. A metro that spans states counts once, for the state that owns its page (same rule as the metro pages).

Who is listed here

Counts of what each listed firm states on its own website: footprint tier, search model (the derived label above), the levels it names and the practice areas it names. Firms are named only inside these groups, in the published listing order.

Largest listed firms by footprint

On metro and state pages, the five listed firms with the most offices nationally, counting a city and state once and only firms with more than one office. Ties are broken A to Z by name. It counts offices. It does not rank quality or size.

Practicing law in a state

The admitting authority and its website, whether the state gives the Uniform Bar Exam, and whether its rules provide for admission on motion. All three come from the National Conference of Bar Examiners: the jurisdiction page at ncbex.org/jurisdictions/<ST>, the list at ncbex.org/exams/ube/list-ube-jurisdictions, and the admission-on-motion chart of NCBE's Comprehensive Guide to Bar Admission Requirements (reports.ncbex.org/comp-guide/charts/chart-14/). Each admission-on-motion answer is checked against NCBE's per-state page, and a disagreement leaves the fact blank. “UBE: Yes” means the state is on NCBE's list with a first administration on or before the day checked, legacy or NextGen. A fact that cannot be read from a fetched page is left blank, never guessed. The date checked is shown on every box.

How firms link to us

Any listed firm can put a “Listed on LegalRecruiters.org” badge on its own site. The badge is an image with a plain link to the firm's listing. It is free and optional, and we do not ask for it in return for a listing, a correction or a claim.

Linking to us changes nothing about ordering. We do not record which firms link to us, and the ordering rule above uses only whether a listing is claimed, how much verified information it has, and the firm's name.