WTHF is pleased to announce that U.S. News and Best Lawyers has ranked our firm as a Tier 1 law firm nationally in Construction Law with additional Tier 1 rankings in Construction Law in the metropolitan areas of Washington and Orange County.

The 2010 Best Law Firms rankings are the inaugural national rankings of 583 law firms in 39 practices areas, and rankings of 8,782 law firms in 81 practice areas in 178 metropolitan locations. These rankings provide a view of the U.S. legal profession that is, according to U.S. News Media Group and Best Lawyers, “unprecedented both in the range of firms represented and in the range of qualitative and quantitative data used to develop the rankings.” Obtaining a first-tier ranking is a highly-regarded distinction that signals a unique combination of excellence and breadth of expertise.

U.S. News - Best Lawyers collected survey responses from over 9,500 clients and 9,000 lawyers and combined them with more than 3.1 million evaluations of individual lawyers in the firms featured in the most recent Best Lawyers survey of leading lawyers to generate the Best Law Firms list. Practice area rankings were developed according to specific data, including: the number of lawyers and their prior experience; numbers of clients within different billing ranges; and numbers of transactions and litigation matters at different dollar levels.

Over the past two decades, U.S. News is has earned a reputation as a trusted publication providing the public with in-depth rankings of a wide range of institutions while Best Lawyers has ranked individual lawyers based on peer reviews for nearly 30 years. Their combined expertise led to the Best Law Firms rankings designed to help guide referring lawyers and clients alike. “By combining hard data with peer reviews, and client assessments, we believe that we are providing users with the most thorough, accurate, and helpful rankings of law firms ever developed,” said Steven Naifeh, President of Best Lawyers.

The rankings are posted online at www.usnews.com/bestlawfirms, with the national first-tier rankings also featured in the October print issue of the U.S. News & World Report.