Directories

First off, I shouldn’t complain too much, as I do get a listing as one of the Leading Individuals in Insurance & Reinsurance Litigation, which is nice even if it does make me sound like a luxury hotel.

However, one should treat industry directories with caution. Legal 500 have some oddities this year. Halliwells are ranked in the professional negligence section, and given this entry:

> Halliwells LLP gained further strength with the recruitment of Jolyon Patten, former head of reinsurance at Elborne Mitchell . The team has recently advised on claims against accountants, solicitors and construction professionals, including a claim against developers and a construction team arising from a landslip incident.

Do you think they might have noticed the give-away phrase “Head of Reinsurance”? Now I do do quite a bit of E&O work, but it tends to have something of a reinsurance flavour to it. Also, I don’t even get mentioned in the main section on Insurance and Reinsurance, which even on their own logic is peculiar.

This time of year is always greeted by smiles of wry amusement from those in the know, while the more insecure get rather exercised. On any view, while I have no doubt as to the veracity of the information, one does rather feel that an exercise which gathers details about 8 months or so prior to publication may be open to errors creeping in.