About the Awards is a new series of Q&As with our editors across ALM Media's publications that aims to give readers and potential nominees insight into our judging process for awards related to ALM Recognition Events. We hope this will guide you as you draft your submissions, and we welcome any additional questions you may have.

For the next column in our series, we'll be discussing our Pennsylvania Legal Awards with bureau chief Max Mitchell, who will be leading the judging across all categories.

For more information about the Pennsylvania Legal Awards 2022 contest, please visit the Call for Nominations post and the official awards site. The deadline for submissions is March 25. You can also view other upcoming ALM contest submission deadlines and sign up for marketing notifications here.

Max, can you tell us more about yourself and your legal and journalism background?

I'm the Pennsylvania bureau chief for ALM, and the brand editor for The Legal Intelligencer, which basically means that, along with being an active reporter, I select the content that goes in the paper and on the website each day. As for my background, I've been at The Legal for nearly nine years and have covered all aspects of the law, from in-court litigation to C-suit-level business of law topics. Before joining The Legal I was a reporter at various general circulation newspapers around New York State. I consider my time working as a reporter at ALM's VerdictSeach as the closest I've gotten to any formal legal training. Reporting on nuts and bolts litigation gave me a great foundation to tackle complex legal issues without having any actual training in these areas. And hey, so far so good.

Is this a new contest?

This is not a new contest. The Legal has been doing these awards since before I started here, and I believe our awards took place for many years before that. I know it's long been a priority to honor the best that Pennsylvania's legal community has to offer. It is, however, only my second year overseeing the awards.

What's the difference with the litigation departments of the year contest and the Pennsylvania regional litigation departments category held by AmLaw Industry Awards?

The main difference is that, when it comes to The Legal's litigation departments of the year award, we are casting a wider net for law firms in Pennsylvania. The AmLaw Industry Awards typically places more of an emphasis on larger law firms, but for The Legal's litigation department awards, firms of all sizes are welcome to submit. It doesn't matter if the department is two lawyers. All that matters is that the department successfully handled a wide range of impactful litigation throughout the year.

Who should be interested in submitting nominations for this contest?

Everyone – firms, individual lawyers, general counsel, judges, etc. If you were doing significant legal work in Pennsylvania, we want to hear from you. One thing that is somewhat different this year is we are making a concerted effort to get submissions from a diverse range of lawyers in Pennsylvania so we can be truly representative of the practitioners in the state. So please do not be shy with submissions!

Who is judging this contest?

Several editors – mostly at The Legal, but a few from around ALM's various other brands – do the majority of the judging. We also have a panel of outside judges who assist with all of the Lawyers of the Fast Track contestants, since we typically receive more of those submissions. However, myself and magazines editor Kristie Rearick guide nearly all of the judging, and make the final decisions. The only exception is the Attorney of the Year. For that award, we have a panel of prominent lawyers, judges and legal luminaries who vote. So that is decided by multiple panelists.

What are the judges looking for?

We are looking for impact – rulings that set precedent, business decisions that shook things up, deals that broke new ground in a given field, etc. Verdicts and big numbers are good, but even more so, we are looking for what the impacts will be, what obstacles had to be overcome, what headwinds and problems were faced down, and – most importantly – how this work might shape the future of the legal landscape in Pennsylvania.

What do you want to see in submissions?

Typically we get a lot of entries so concision is always appreciated. We like submissions that are light on narration and cut to the most important aspect of why this person should be recognized for their work. Numbers are helpful to gauge the magnitude of the work that's being described too – that goes for the size of a verdict, or demand; the size of a class; the number of documents reviewed; the number of people impacted by a pro bono case; or the size of the merger, or acquisition. And showing all of that through court decisions, rather than narratives is helpful for us as well. We do fact check too, so if you can show your work by citing to these court decisions, that is always very helpful.