Joseph Kornik We've been getting to the point a lot these days. That's because it's Best Firms to Work For time; that most wonderful time of the year when three-tenths of a point can separate an elite firm from one stuck somewhere the middle of the pack. Yeah, we sure get to the point all right… the decimal point.

Those decimal points, and more specifically the numbers before and after them, can make or break a firm. This is serious stuff: That's why we're devoting 36 pages to it.

In this year's coverage, we've included everything from the best large and small firms by service lines to the category killers in Culture, Client Engagement, Compensation & Benefits, Career Development, Firm Leadership and Work/Life Balance. Since we've spent so much time looking at the numbers, we've come up with a few conclusions and
observations.

Here they are, Best Firms style:

  • Those 13,000+ survey responses are a lot. And by a lot we mean our most ever. Just how many? Ever scroll down an Excel Spreadsheet to row thirteen-thousand-and-something-or-other? We have.
  • The 350 firms that took part in the survey is also a big number. That's a lot of back-and-forth with firm representatives; (and a lot of disappointed reps now that the final list is revealed).
  • The Land of Lincoln rules. Among the 30 Best Firms to Work For in 2011, eight were from Chicago or its suburbs; six were from New York; and there four each from Boston and Seattle. Yes, Seattle. The other eight, by the way, were from everywhere else.
  • The survey's not all data and decimals; we also allow open ended responses. And boy, you sure don't hold back. Seriously, why are some of you still working at your firm? Forget it, we know why.
  • Overall, consultants were less satisfied this year than in 2010. Even more troubling, the overall satisfaction level is just a hair above the 2009 level. The biggest year-over-year satisfaction losses occurred in the areas of Career Development and Work/Life Balance.
  • Five of the six facets of employee satisfaction—except for Compensation & Benefits—are down from 2010. Here's the point (and don't think for a minute that I don't appreciate the fact that a column titled "Get to the Point" gets to its point in the second-to-last paragraph): Even though firms are paying consultants more, that fact, in and of itself, hasn't moved the needle on overall employee satisfaction, at least as we measure it.

So you tell us, are we on to something here? Are we way off base? Is that what you are seeing, too? Send us an e-mail… and when you do, please, get right to the point. We appreciate it more than you know.

Joseph Kornik
Editor-in-Chief

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