TOP 40 INDIAN LAW FIRMS

The 2010 rankings have been expanded to a top 40 Indian law firms, reflecting the growing depth and number of quality corporate firms in the market. Two highly ranked firms, Platinum Partners and Phoenix Legal, were established since the 2008 rankings but have already made an impact. In total, 18 of the RSG top 40 firms have set up shop since 1995 and virtually every month there is a break-away from an established law firm of individual corporate partners, ready to chance their luck at growing a legal business.

The RSG top 40 firms is a ranking based on quality, profile and capability. All scores are comparative within the ranked firms and do not reflect an absolute assessment outside this comparison.  Opinions from Indian and foreign clients, Indian lawyers and the deal performance of the firms over a three year period were used to compile this ranking. RSG Consulting visited 47 law firms at their offices for face to face interviews and conducted telephone interviews with another 8 law firms. For the client review, included over 300 pieces of client feedback including over 40 face to face meetings, 80 telephone interviews and 180 scorecards. Clients in the sample group reflected a representative spread of industry sectors and company size. Approximately half were Indian companies and half foreign companies. 25% of client contacts were General Counsel and the remaining 75% were CEO, CFO or Managing Director. The sample group of companies includes:
 

• 5 of the top 10 and 15 of the top 50 largest banks globally
• 6 of the top 10 and 17 of the top 50 Indian companies in the ET500 index
• Clients from the following sectors in order of representation: banking & finance, healthcare, biotech and pharmaceuticals, industrial and manufacturing, energy & power, telecoms, IT, consumer goods, diversified, media, professional services and aviation.

Scores against the criteria are RSG Consulting's opinions, derived by the following methods.

 
Quality: score based on performance on deals tables for M&A, project finance, private equity and capital markets by both value and volume for the past 12 months and past 3 years; feedback from clients on quality of work, expertise and service delivery.
 
Profile: score based on a count of total number of mentions and qualitative feedback from RSG's sample group of clients, Indian lawyers and foreign lawyers, with greater weight given to unprompted recommendations.

 
Capability: score based on size of law firm by number of lawyers and estimated turnover, capability by practice area and locations, feedback from clients on ability to handle large scale work and firm bandwidth.
 
Amarchand and AZB remain undisputed leaders at the top of the table. While they share the top spot, client reviews highlighted a number of cultural differences between the two firms.  Knocking on their hegemony is JSA and we watch their progress with interest. It is a firm that technically has greater strength in depth than the two leaders but is still perceived as just behind them.
 
Other law firms who have made it into the rankings for the first time include highly regarded banking and finance specialists Juris Corp (established 2006) and climbing into the bottom of the table, firms who received glowing client reviews like DH Law (1997) and Hemant Sahai Associates (2003). Two older niche firms were included, as they were widely regarded to be at the top of their practices: Tyabji Dayabhai for aviation and Federal & Raskmikant for real estate work.
 
The firms who rose the highest up the rankings this year include ALMT Legal, Bharucha & Partners, and DSK legal all of whom were well reviewed by clients and law firm peers.