Brian Glaser doesn't get out much. Not on the job, anyway. As one of our senior editors, Brian takes care of our website, editing most of the stories that get posted every day and striving to make our special digital reports look special. That means he's at his desk much of the time, wearing noise-canceling headphones for the times he needs to concentrate in our open-plan newsroom.

But last month was a special one for the reporters, and we actually told Brian to buy a plane ticket and see a bit of the world. He wasn't alone—we sent four reporters out to bring you this month's special feature section, our annual Best Legal Departments awards.

As in previous years, we pored through dozens of nomination forms. As an editor, I have to applaud everyone who sent one in. We've noticed that the quality of submissions gets better each year we do this. There's a good side to that; it seems that the standard of legal department best practices improves year over year. But there's a bad side, and my reasons for saying so are mostly selfish. It's getting harder to choose; we're noticing that the differences between a lot of departments are less discernible.