What Happens When 50 Law Firms Write About the Same Judgment?

The judgment is the same for everyone

An important judgment is delivered.

Within hours, lawyers begin discussing it. Within a day or two, law firm websites and LinkedIn feeds start filling with updates.

The names may change, the formatting may look different and one article may be longer than another, but the structure is often remarkably similar:

• background of the dispute;

• arguments raised by the parties;

• what the court held;

• important observations; and

• a short conclusion.

There is nothing actually wrong with this format. For clients who follow a particular firm, a timely summary may be really useful.

The problem starts when fifty firms are publishing essentially the same information and very few are giving the reader a reason to choose one analysis over another.

At this point, the question for a law firm should not be:

“Should we write about this judgment?”

It should really be:

“What can we say about this judgment that will actually be useful?”

A summary tells the reader what happened

A good case summary has value. It records the facts, explains the legal issue and tells the reader how the court decided it but in many cases, the judgment itself is publicly available. News publications have already reported the decision, and other firms may already have published detailed summaries.

Just simply reproducing the same information does not necessarily demonstrate what the firm's lawyers know. The stronger opportunity lies in the layer that comes after the summary.

For example:

The first column explains the judgment, the second explains why the judgment matters. This is the place where usually a law firm has more to contribute.

Speed should not become the only objective

There is often pressure to publish quickly when a significant legal development takes place. That pressure is understandable.

A firm may want to demonstrate that its lawyers are following developments closely and make sure its commentary appears while the issue is still being discussed but speed can create another problem.

If the objective becomes simply to publish before competitors, there may be little time to consider what the firm's actual perspective is.

The result is often a technically accurate update that could have been written by almost any firm.

Sometimes it may be more valuable to publish a thoughtful analysis a little later than to be the twentieth firm publishing the same summary on the first day.

The most interesting part may not be the final decision

Law firm content often focuses heavily on the final outcome of a case yet the most useful part of a judgment is really somewhere else.

It could be:

• the way the court interpreted a particular provision;

• an observation that affects how agreements should be drafted;

• the treatment of a particular kind of evidence;

• an issue the court deliberately left undecided;

• a procedural point that could affect future cases;

• a distinction drawn between two situations;

• the court's approach to an emerging commercial practice; or

• a wider trend visible across several recent decisions.

A firm that regularly works in that area may be particularly well placed to identify these points, and this is where subject-matter experience becomes useful.

The lawyer is no longer just telling the reader what appears in the judgment but helping the reader understand which part deserves to be spoken about.

Different lawyers can legitimately see different stories in the same judgment

The court decision may have completely different implications depending on who is reading i. Let's consider a judgment involving technology and data.

A technology transactions lawyer may focus on what it means for contractual drafting whereas a privacy lawyer may focus on the treatment of personal data.

A disputes lawyer may be interested in the evidentiary or procedural aspects whereas an in-house counsel may want to know whether an existing business process needs to change.

This means a law firm does not necessarily need to cover every aspect of an important decision. It may be more effective to identify the part that connects most closely with its own clients and practice.

Client questions can provide the angle

One of the easiest ways to move beyond a judgment summary is to think about the questions clients are likely to ask after reading the headline.

For example:

• Does this change what we are currently doing?

• Does this apply to our business?

• Do we need to review existing agreements?

• Is this a new legal position or confirmation of an existing one?

• Does the decision increase our risk?

• What should we do next?

• Are there still unresolved questions?

An article built around one or two of these questions immediately becomes more client-facing, and just like that, the content is no longer organized only around what the court said.

Not every important judgment needs a full article

There is also another option that law firms sometimes overlooks which is the not every judgment needs to become a 1,500-word website article.

Different developments can justify different formats.

Choosing the format according to the significance of the development can also make the firm's overall content more useful. Publishing everything in the same format can make genuinely important analysis harder to distinguish from routine updates.

Sometimes the better article is about several judgments, not one

There is another way to escape the race to summarize every new decision.

Wait. Watch what happens next.

One judgment may be interesting but three judgments pointing in the same direction may tell a much more valuable story.

Instead of publishing three separate case summaries, a lawyer may eventually write:

“Three Recent Decisions Suggest a Shift in How Courts Are Approaching…”

or:

“What Recent Cases Tell Us About…”

This allows the lawyer to identify a pattern rather than simply report an event. It also gives the reader something they may not get from reading each judgment individually.

The aim should always be contribution, not duplication

There will always be good reasons for law firms to write about important judgments.

• Clients expect their advisers to understand important developments.

• Websites need current and relevant content.

• Lawyers need opportunities to demonstrate their knowledge.

The problem is not that multiple firms cover the same decision but when each firm publishes almost the same piece.

Before writing another judgment update, it can therefore help to ask:

• Has the basic decision already been widely reported?

• Which part of the judgment matters most to our clients?

• Can our lawyers add a practical observation?

• Is there an industry-specific implication worth explaining?

• Does this decision connect with a larger trend?

• Is there something being misunderstood in the initial coverage?

• Would a different format be more useful than a full article?

If there is a clear answer to one of these questions, there is probably a worthwhile piece of content to publish.

The value is in what the lawyer adds

Fifty law firms can read the same judgment where they can quote the same paragraphs, describe the same facts and report the same outcome.

What they cannot necessarily offer is the same interpretation and so legal content comes into the picture.

A judgment provides the information whereas the lawyer provides the perspective, and when everyone else is writing about the same development, that perspective is often the only part of the article that can truly belong to the firm.