Korea’s Shin & Kim, India’s Khaitan & Co and two PRC law firms are the five best performing firms in this year’s ALB 50, the guide to the largest law firms in the Asia-Pacific region.
Korean law firm Shin & Kim capped a stellar year of growth by climbing 12 places in 2010 and is now the 26th largest law firm in Asia and the third largest Korean law firm behind Kim & Chang and Lee & Ko.
India’s Khaitan & Co, meanwhile, moved up nine places this year after increasing its total headcount by 62. This means the firm is now the third largest Indian law firm and the 35th largest overall. It is almost certain to be named among Asia’s fastest growing law firms for the past year.
PRC law firms again demonstrated their seemingly insatiable appetite for lightning growth. Almost a third of all firms who made this year’s ALB 50 table hail from the Mainland but two in particular merit special mention. The biggest gainer this year was ZhongLun W&D. The Bejing-based 317- lawyer firm gained 15 places this year to 19th place while Zhongyin and its 346 lawyers came in 13th place, some 12 places higher than it did last year.
Despite a year or so of widely publicised redundancies and restructuring in Asia, Clifford Chance moved up the rankings by ten places this year to seal 10th spot on the ALB 50 table and can now lay claim to being the second-largest international law firm in Asia behind Baker & McKenzie.
The full ALB 50 table for 2010, as well as separate lists for each jurisdiction across Asia, will be published in the October (10.10) edition of ALB magazine.
For details of the worst performing in this year’s ALB 50 please click here.ALB
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