FT Innovative Lawyers: How to make a good submission
Mary Ormerod
12 Jan 2024
The FT Innovative Lawyers programme was founded in 2006 and is renowned in the industry for its uniquely intensive research process, ensuring the very best examples of legal innovation are highlighted. Every year we invite law firms and in-house legal teams across Asia Pacific, Europe and North America to send in submissions. Visit the FT Innovative Lawyers homepage here.
To help firms and legal teams tell the story of their innovations, we have put together some tips for how to make a good submission.
For more information about dates and deadlines, see here or you can visit the FAQs page.
If you have any further queries about the programme please contact ftresearch@rsgi.co
Tips for making a good submission
- Read our previous reports: these are available on ft.com in front of the paywall. You can access them here
- Answer the questions: the researchers at RSGI designed a submission form that is unlike a typical rankings survey. Look closely at the questions and think about the assessment criteria of originality, leadership and impact.
- Include as much evidence as you can: we are looking for figures, data, demonstrable impact.
- Avoid jargon: don’t use marketing jargon or hyperbole, and avoid using legalese – remember the best submissions will be featured in the FT for a business and legal audience.
- Give us the facts: tell us the who, what, where, when, why and how using as few words as possible.
- Demonstrate the ways that the lawyers showed leadership by proactively bringing solutions, devising strategy, taking the lead in negotiations and creating their own instructions.
- Be explicit in describing the innovation: don’t just tell it’s new, tell us why.
- When answering the business challenge question, make sure you articulate what your clients were facing and the context rather than the legal challenge.
- If you can make the submission tell a story, through the answers to the questions, it is more powerful for the researchers and more likely to feature in the report.
- In interviews be clear about exactly what the innovation is and help the research team understand what makes this case study stand out from others.
- Read the guidelines for more insight into the themes and focuses of each report. We are constantly updating our research so don’t assume it will be the same every year. The Asia Pacific guidelines are available here.
"The best lawyers are succinct, precise and do not obfuscate. Practice of law submissions should be the same: see the big picture but able to drill down to the legal innovations. Business of law submissions should also show an understanding of market context and how the initiative is genuinely changing the firm. It's important to not get hung up about originality: very little in the legal market is totally new, but the way it's applied and its impact can be unique."
Reena SenGupta, Executive Director at RSGI and Founder of the FT Innovative Lawyers programme