We invite you to submit your nominations for our annual Southeastern Legal Awards. We’re accepting nominations from firms, companies, and organizations in Georgia, North and South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee. Please note that the following descriptions are a guide – for the full questions, please log into the awards platform for the full nomination form.
Open to All
Attorney of the Year Award
The Daily Report seeks nominations for Attorney of the Year. Our criteria for Attorney of the Year is intentionally broad. This award goes to a Southeastern lawyer who in 2023 had the biggest impact on the law or the Southeast legal community, or who did the most to advance the cause of justice. (To be sure, some of this work may have originated before 2023 and/or extended into 2024.)
Please submit up to 500 words explaining why a nominee meets these criteria. With the help of a panel of esteemed lawyers, the Daily Report will recognize three finalists and name one Attorney of the Year at the June 10, 2024 event.
Lifetime Achievers
Open to Anyone in the Southeast Legal CommunityThis award honors anyone living who has left a lasting imprint on the Southeast legal community. Please submit up to 500 words explaining why a nominee meets these criteria.
- What inspired you to become a lawyer, and what would you credit with maintaining that inspiration?
- Please describe work on a case or issue that has made you proud to be a lawyer during the past year.
- What qualities should a lawyer possess to become a successful and effective leader?
- How do you see the field of law evolving in the next five to ten years?
Distinguished Leaders
This award recognizes lawyers who achieved impressive results in 2023 and demonstrated clear leadership skills that helped them achieve those results. Examples include—but are not limited to—leading a team that won a big case, helping a firm grow, managing a big deal or getting a key piece of legislation passed (or defeated).
Please submit an essay of up to 500 words that describes the leader’s role in achieving noteworthy results.
On the Rise
The Daily Report’s On The Rise program recognizes the Southeast’s most promising lawyers under the age of 40 as of June 1, 2024. This year the Daily Report will be assisted in the selection process by a panel of esteemed lawyers. To qualify for the On the Rise award, the lawyers must work in the Southeast. They should be innovators, developing unique practice niches, amassing robust books of business, demonstrating strong leadership qualities, showing expertise in litigation or transactional work, and committing themselves to pro bono, charitable and professional volunteer work. Please submit an essay of up to 500 words, a high resolution color photo, and two references.
- Commercial Litigation
- Class Actions/Mass Torts
- Employment/Labor
- Securities
- Intellectual Property
- Insurance
- Employment/Labor
- Environmental, Social, and Governance
- Investigations/White Collar Defense
- State/Local Government Enforcement Litigation
- Mergers & Acquisitions
Young Lawyer of the Year
Open to Anyone in the Southeast Legal Community under the age of 40 as of June 1, 2024
This award honors a lawyer under 40 who has shown exceptional work in the last year. Examples can include handling notable matters, showing business development prowess, improving systems of service delivery, or otherwise providing exceptional work for clients and positive impacts to their organization.
Best Mentors
This category recognizes lawyers who have helped less-experienced colleagues become better lawyers. The relationship between mentors and mentees need not be formal. Please submit an essay of up to 300 words that describes the mentor’s role and results.
Most-Effective Deal-makers
Quantity or dollar volume are not the only criteria. These deal-makers get repeat business for how they achieve their clients’ goals so that both sides sign on the dotted lines. Please submit an essay of up to 500 words that describes the nominee’s deal-making skills, strategies and results.
- What are the hardest challenges in a deal, and at what point do you advise a client that "no deal" is better than a bad deal?
- Who are one or two people who helped you achieve your career success, and how did they do that?
Managing Partner of the Year
Leaders who have had a huge, impactful year, a year that stands out among their peers. We welcome nominations of managing partners of offices or firms based in the Southeastern region. Please submit an essay of up to 500 words that describes why this nominee deserves the recognition.
Legal Innovators
Open to Anyone in the Southeast Legal CommunityThis award seeks to honor innovative efforts by individual lawyers and legal professionals. Their innovation could be technology-oriented, but it doesn’t have to be. We want to hear about attorneys and legal professionals who have come up with game-changing ideas for their practices or organizations and who were then able to turn that vision into reality. Please submit an essay of up to 500 words describing this person.
- What are some of your proudest achievements in 2023?
- Innovation often refers to technology, but means more than that. What are some routes to effective innovation that might be overlooked?
- What must the leaders of law firms and other organizations do to ensure they are receptive to new ideas, and to improve the legal profession’s reputation for being innovative?
Diversity Initiative
The Diversity Initiative award goes to a firm (any size) that has embraced diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
- What are your proudest accomplishments in the area of diversity and inclusion in law?
- What are the greatest diversity and inclusion-related challenges today for Southeastern lawyers and firms?
- Who have you found to be particularly inspirational in implementing successful diversity initiatives?
Open to In-House Counsel
In-House Legal Departments of the Year
The Legal Department of the Year contest recognizes the Southeast’s top in-house legal departments. Each essay should be no more than 500 words, and please include Law Department information, as detailed below, to accompany each submission. The awards are based on success stories: how a given in-house counsel’s office, regardless of its size, came up with innovative programs, used ingenuity to solve problems or surmounted a scarcity of resources and still delivered a high quality of client service.
- What makes this legal department special? Tell us how it stands out from the crowd.
- Tell us about any particularly challenging litigation in the last year.
- How has it managed outside counsel?
- Has the department had any important developments in its use of technology?
- Does it have significant pro bono programs? What kind of quality-of-life initiatives has it attempted?
In-House Counsel of the Year
This recognizes an in-house lawyer or legal professional who had a significant accomplishment in 2023. Please submit an essay of up to 500 words that should describe the nominee’s skills, strategies and results.
Open to All Law Firms
Litigation Departments of the Year — All Firms
These awards are open to law firms with any-sized Southeastern presence. We would like you to submit matters led by Southeastern attorneys, but their cases could be litigated anywhere. We plan to name winners in each sub-category but, depending on the quality of the entries, multiple winners may be named in one group and none in another.
Please compose separate submissions for each sub-category:
- General Litigation
- Appellate
- Insurance
- Intellectual Property
- Labor and Employment
- Personal Injury
- Products Liability
- White Collar
- Other Specialty Practice
For each sub-category, please submit the following:
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Two client references, including phone numbers or email addresses.
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List four or five of your top litigation successes in which the result occurred in 2023. Limit description of each case to no more than 500 words.
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Each result must have been achieved by lawyers while they were members of your firm based in a Southeastern office. Do not include results achieved by lateral hires when they were working for a different firm.
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For each result, please include the names of clients, lead partners and opposing counsel, as well as contact information for all involved whenever possible.
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Descriptions of results should include specific dollar amounts where relevant, but should focus on why the result demonstrates the excellence of your department. Unless otherwise marked, all information submitted will be considered on the record. If your client was represented by more than one firm, please specify your firm’s role.
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Briefly describe your firm’s biggest litigation loss in the past two years, with names of opposing counsel.
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Give a brief description of three upcoming matters for your firm.
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An essay of no more than 500 words explaining why your firm deserves the award. Factors we’re looking for are the importance and difficulty of the matters handled, the quality of opposing counsel, ingenuity and diligence. This is no place for false modesty!
Most Innovative Law Firm
Law Firm of the Year
This award will go to the firm that has the best and most meritorious submissions across multiple categories. The purpose of the award is to recognize the Southeastern firm that has demonstrated a broad spectrum of achievements in the past year and talent depth. In order to be considered, firms must enter submissions across multiple categories. At a minimum, firms must submit in the following categories: Attorney of the Year, Lifetime Achievers, Distinguished Leaders and/or On the Rise AND Mentors, Legal Innovators/Most Innovative Firm, Litigation Departments and/or Dealmakers categories.
- What is the biggest challenge in maintaining its Atlanta ties as it aims for prominence in the global legal market?
- What changes do you foresee as clients and the firm endure the impact of the coronavirus pandemic and its economic effects?