No one at Virginia Business is running for office, but the magazine is reaching out to a group of potential voters. We don’t care if they are Democrats or Republicans as long as they are licensed lawyers.
Starting next year, voting for the magazine’s Legal Elite will be open to all lawyers licensed to practice in Virginia. Working with the Virginia Bar Association (VBA), the commonwealth’s voluntary bar, the magazine for the past seven years has sent ballots to a list of lawyers asking them to vote for the best attorneys in a group of legal categories. Over the years, the number of ballots distributed has grown from about 6,000 to nearly 7,000 as the number of categories has increased from 10 to 15. Lately, the list of potential voters has expanded to include more lawyers in Northern Virginia, the Shenandoah Valley and Southwest Virginia.
The commonwealth, however, has grown rapidly since the Legal Elite began in 2000. The number of active lawyers in the state has increased from about 22,000 to nearly 27,000, according to the VBA. Following the example of other publications with similar programs, Virginia Business has decided that the time has come to cast a wider net for the Legal Elite. The magazine will continue to send paper ballots to those already receiving them. All lawyers licensed in Virginia, however, will be able to vote online. In addition, VBA members will receive e-mails that will include links to the online ballot. Checks will be in place to ensure that only licensed lawyers vote and no one votes more than once. About 120 lawyers used an online ballot provided for the first time this year. The dates for voting in 2008 will be announced in the magazine’s upcoming issues.
On Legal Elite ballots, lawyers may nominate colleagues in their firm in each of the 15 categories. However, they also must vote for an equal number of attorneys in other firms. Votes for “outside” lawyers on all ballots are weighted (given more points) in tallying each nominee’s total score.
This year, voters returned 1,162 ballots, about 100 more than in 2006. The ballots resulted in the nomination of 2,742 lawyers. Of that number, about 750 lawyers, roughly a quarter of the nominees, were selected for the list.
On the following pages are profiles of lawyers from each category. They were drawn from the top 10 vote getters in their fields, but they are not necessarily the lawyers with the most votes. The profile subjects represent firms of varying size throughout the state. (Lawyers who have been profiled in previous years were not considered for write-ups this year.)
The categories on the 2007 ballot conform to the law sections of the VBA. Returning to the ballot after several years’ absence were these categories: bankruptcy, construction, legislative/regulatory/administrative and real estate/land use. Two categories on last year’s ballot were omitted, immigration/naturalization and transportation/admiralty/intermodal.
Over the years, the magazine has rotated a number of categories on the ballot to recognize lawyers in different fields. Several core categories, however, have always focused on areas important to business, such as business law, civil litigation and labor law.
The editors hope to snare an increasing number of votes in all categories next year with the online ballot.
