Martindale-Hubbell Peer Review Ratings were created in 1887 as an objective tool that would attest to a lawyer’s ability and professional ethics, based on the confidential opinions of other lawyers and judges who have worked with the lawyers they are evaluating.
In this highly competitive environment for legal services, the Martindale-Hubbell Peer Review Rating is often one of the only means to differentiate lawyers who are otherwise very comparable in their credentials. This is important on a variety of levels – from the in-house counsel trying to determine which one of his outside law firms should be assigned a new matter to the private practice attorney seeking to refer a case to another lawyer with the appropriate expertise in a specific area of practice.
Indeed, a Martindale-Hubbell Peer Review Rating can be one of the most important criteria that lawyers and clients use to evaluate an attorney when retaining a lawyer, or simply researching the background of co-counsel or opposing counsel. When referring matters to colleagues with specific expertise or looking for counsel in another jurisdiction, attorneys want to have confidence in the individual lawyer under consideration. By reviewing the ratings, they can be guided to a lawyer with very high ethics as well as the appropriate level of professional experience.
