Sometimes the same person is put forward to Chambers as a referee for multiple firms, or for multiple different practice areas and departments within the same firm. If that is the case, the referee will appear on RMT as either Contacted: 3-month ruling or In Progress: 3-month ruling. This rule prevents us from contacting referees in the following three months when we have already attempted or made contact with them for a different practice area. This rule has been in place at Chambers for many years and aims to avoid “referee fatigue”, where a referee gets request after request and eventually stops responding. In Progress: 3-month ruling In this case the referee has been emailed in the previous three months but hasn’t provided feedback yet. Please note that where a referee has a lot of referrals, the first researcher to get to them will give the referee the chance to discuss as many firms and practice areas as they wish. The spreadsheets you send u​​​​s are data-scraped into a centralised interview management system, so all researchers can see all referrals and will know they need to ask beyond their own assignment when a referee has been put forward for several different practice areas, firms and jurisdictions. Contacted: 3-month ruling In this case the referee has been in touch with us in the previous three months and we won’t attempt to contact them again. This referee has received and considered our request for feedback and this person should now be left in peace.