Patricia M. Annino, Robert A. Bertsche, James W. Lawson, Walter B. Prince, and Joseph D. Steinfield were featured in the 2009 edition of Boston’s Best Lawyers, a stand-alone publication inserted into the June 28, 2009 edition of The Boston Sunday Globe.
Patricia M. Annino – a Best Lawyer since 2008 in Trusts and Estates
Robert A. Bertsche – a Best Lawyer since 2005 in First Amendment Law and Media Law. Selected in 2009 as a Best Lawyer in Communications Law as well.
James W. Lawson – a Best Lawyer in Non-White-Collar Criminal Defense and White-Collar Criminal Defense
Walter B. Prince – Selected as a Best Lawyer in Non-White-Collar Criminal Defense and White-Collar Criminal Defense
Joseph D. Steinfield – a Best Lawyer since 1989 in Commercial Litigation and First Amendment Law
Click here to view the Prince Lobel photo and profile.
How are "Boston’s Best Lawyers" selected?
The Boston list is excerpted from the 2009 edition of The Best Lawyers in America, the pre-eminent referral guide to the legal profession in the United States. Published for a quarter of a century, Best Lawyers lists attorneys in 78 specialties, representing all 50 states and the District of Columbia, who have been chosen through an exhaustive survey in which thousands of the nation’s top lawyers confidentially evaluate their professional peers. The 2009 edition of Best Lawyers is based on more than 2.4 million evaluations of lawyers by other lawyers.
The method used to compile Best Lawyers remains unchanged since the first edition was compiled 25 years ago. Lawyers are chosen for inclusion based solely on a vote of their peers. Listings cannot be bought, and no purchase is required to be included. In this regard, Best Lawyers remains the gold standard of reliability and integrity in lawyer ratings.
The nomination pool for the 2009 edition consisted of all lawyers whose names appeared in the previous edition of Best Lawyers, lawyers who were nominated since the previous survey, and new nominees solicited from listed attorneys. In general, lawyers were asked to vote only on nominees in their own specialty in their own jurisdiction. Lawyers in closely related specialties were asked to vote across specialties, as were lawyers in smaller jurisdictions.
Where specialties are national or international in nature, lawyers were asked to vote nationally as well as locally. Voting lawyers were also given an opportunity to offer more detailed comments on nominees. Each year, half of the voting pool receives fax or email ballots; the other half is polled by phone. Best Lawyers uses various methodological tools to identify and correct for anomalies in both the nomination and voting process.