[Editor's note: Changes were made to the "Top Law Firms" table to reflect the correct placement of four law firms: Egorov Puginsky Afanasiev & Partners, Clifford Chance, Avellum and Dentons. The Kyiv Post regrets the errors.]When it comes to law firms in 2013, the best are still the best. The Kyiv Post brings our readers two comprehensive ranking systems of the Top Law Firms in Ukraine for 2013. One is created from three internationally respected ranking companies and the other is a peer ranking guide (see page 8), based on responses from the law firms themselves.
The former is comprised of Legal 500, Chambers Europe and International Financial Law Review 1000. The guide is divided into two areas of practice. One is corporate and mergers and acquisitions, and the other banking and finance. All of these rankings were compiled this year and can be found on each company’s respective website.
This accumulation of data depicts only those law firms which were ranked in all three ratings. If a law firm was not found in one of these surveys, they were excluded. If a law firm was not found in one of the two categories within the survey’s provided by the companies, then an artificial value was placed in the missing spot in order to balance the total. This artificial value is designated by an asterisk and is created from the average of the provided numbers from the other companies in that category. Consequently, if a law firm from last year does not appear this year in our ranking it may mean that it was not ranked in one of the three ratings but does not necessarily mean that the firm’s quality has decreased.
Additionally, unlike last year, the law firm with the lowest score is the top ranked. This is derived from adding the numbers for each law firm from the surveys. The reason why the survey was not separated into two separate parts is because the difference in numbers would become insignificant.
Last year’s ranking can be found at: https://archive.kyivpost.com/content/business/kyiv-post-reviews-ukraines-top-law-practices-in-20-308975.html.
Succinctly, one can see that not much has changed in the past year. Baker & McKenzie and Sayenko Kharenko share the top spot, with Asters close behind in third position. Avellum has risen up from sixth place last year to fourth place this year. There has been some slight shuffling with some of the higher ranked companies as well. Additionally, this year three new law firms, Andriy Kravets & Partners, Gide Loyrette Nouel and Chadbourne & Parke LLP, have entered the list. Salans also disappeared, albeit due to an international merger, which means it now operates under the name Dentons.
This year the Kyiv Post has also provided our readers with a peer review provided by the Law Firms. The Kyiv Post created a survey that was sent to 31 of the listed companies in the ranking guide provided by the ranking companies. We tried to pick not only the top law firms, but also those of international and local renown. Of those 31 law firms, 29 responded to the survey. The law firms were asked to rank each other on a scale of one to three: One represented excellent, two represented good and three represented fair. These numbers were based on how competent one law firm thought of another. The law firms did not always rank every single law firm on the list due to the fact that some have not worked with each other. To provide the fairest representation of the data, we took the average of the data provided. From that average, the law firms were ranked accordingly.
An analysis of the peer review in comparison with the accumulative survey created from the ranking companies shows some slight overlap. Baker & McKenzie comes in first, just as in the other survey. Likewise, the majority of the other top 10 in the peer review are also in the accumulative ranking, provided either this year or the last.
Kyiv Post Intern Jesse Fleck can by reach at [email protected].
