Where BigLaw Bear's firm data comes from

Law-firm data is messier than it looks.

A firm opens an office. Two firms merge. A chair changes. A salary scale moves. One source counts equity partners while another counts everyone with a partner title. A profile can be accurate when published and wrong a month later.

BigLaw Bear's job is not to pretend that uncertainty does not exist. It is to show students useful information with a source, date, definition, and way to report a correction.

Our basic rule

For factual firm data, we prefer:

1. the firm's own current website or announcement;
2. a regulator, court, or other official source;
3. a named ranking or legal publication with a documented methodology;
4. law-school recruiting materials; and
5. other public reporting when the stronger sources do not answer the question.

We do not treat an old profile as current merely because it remains online.

When a field cannot be verified, the honest answer is blank, unavailable, estimated, or dated. A confident wrong number is worse than a missing one.

Offices

Office lists should begin with the firm's current locations page. We normalize names so students can filter consistently, for example:

• New York, NY;
• Washington, DC;
• Orange County, CA; and
• Silicon Valley / Palo Alto, CA.

The source may call the same market Palo Alto, Menlo Park, or Silicon Valley. We preserve a usable market label while keeping the underlying address and source URL when available.

For each office record, we can store the source URL and verification date. A firm's displayed office count should come from the office records, not from an old number typed into a biography.

Mergers and office openings create temporary disagreement. We check the firm's site, announcement, and current contact pages before reconciling the list.

Leadership and headcount

Managing partner, chair, lawyer count, partner count, and associate count are especially perishable.

Leadership titles also vary. A firm may have co-chairs, a global managing partner, an executive committee chair, or several leaders with different responsibilities. We use the firm's title rather than forcing every structure into one label.

Headcount needs a definition and date. "Partners" may mean equity partners, all partners, or lawyers in a directory search. If the source does not make the definition clear, we should not present the number as precisely comparable across firms.

These fields should carry a verification date and, where supported, a field-level citation.

Compensation

Compensation may include:

• associate base salary;
• expected year-end bonus;
• special bonuses;
• clerkship or signing payments; and
• office-specific exceptions.

The directory labels the figure it displays. A reported first-year total should not be mistaken for base salary.

We use firm announcements, written recruiting information, and credible compensation reporting. Market-scale changes spread unevenly, so a general salary article never overrides a firm's current written offer.

Students should confirm salary, bonus eligibility, office, start date, and class-year treatment directly with the employer.

Vault, Am Law, and Chambers

These sources answer different questions.

Vault produces firm and practice rankings associated with its legal-career research and associate surveys.

Am Law reports financial and business metrics such as revenue rankings and profits per equity partner. Financial metrics usually describe a completed fiscal year, not the day you view the page.

Chambers ranks practices by jurisdiction and category. A firm can be Band 1 for Banking & Finance in one state and unranked for the same broad subject elsewhere.

That is why BigLaw Bear shows the practice name and jurisdiction, not only "two matches, best Band 1." A band without its category and location hides the useful part of the result.

Chambers describes its process as research involving submissions, interviews, and market assessment. We link to the relevant source profile when available and label the guide year.

Rankings are not facts about your personal fit. They are one lens for comparing reputation and practice strength.

Recruiting and summer programs

Recruiting information can come from:

• the firm's careers site;
• law-school recruiting pages;
• the firm's written program materials; and
• current public announcements.

Application dates are particularly volatile. A date from a prior recruiting cycle should never appear as current without a year.

Offer rates, summer-class size, assignment systems, callback formats, and billable expectations also require a source period. If a firm changes its program, the old figure belongs in history, not the current card.

Descriptions and editorial judgment

Firm descriptions are editorial summaries based on public information. They are not written by the firms and should not read like marketing copy.

We try to distinguish:

• a sourced fact;
• a ranking;
• an estimate;
• a firm-provided claim; and
• our editorial explanation.

That separation matters. "The firm has 18 offices" can be verified. "The firm is collegial" is a subjective claim that needs context.

Verification dates and citations

Where the product supports them, firm profiles show a last-verified date and field-level source citations. A general "verified" badge should never imply that every field was checked on the same day.

The most useful citation includes:

• field name;
• source URL;
• short source context;
• who verified it; and
• verification date.

Annual datasets are refreshed when a new edition appears. Perishable fields such as offices, leadership, compensation, and application dates need more frequent checks and event-driven updates.

When sources disagree

We do not silently average incompatible numbers.

We ask:

1. Are the sources describing the same date?
2. Are they using the same definition?
3. Is one the firm itself?
4. Is one clearly newer?
5. Can the discrepancy be explained in the label?

If not, we omit the field or present the disagreement transparently.

Corrections

If you find an error, use the correction link on the firm profile or contact us with:

• firm;
• field;
• correct information;
• source URL; and
• date you checked it.

We verify the source before changing the public record. Corrections are not a nuisance. They are part of maintaining a directory in a market that changes every week.

What this means for students

Use BigLaw Bear to find questions and compare options. Use the linked source and employer materials before making a consequential decision.

The correct standard is not "the database never changes." The standard is that you can tell what a number means, where it came from, how old it is, and how to fix it when reality moves.