Welcome to the 2026 IFLR1000 Research & Awards Cycle!

• To stay up to date on IFLR1000 research announcements and news: JOIN OUR MAILING LIST
• If you would like to speak to someone about our research, please contact a member of our team
• If you are ready to submit your forms, please go straight to the Accreditation Portal - if not, carry on reading below

Key research documents 

• IFLR1000/IFLR Research & Awards form
• IFLR1000 Client referee form
• IFLR1000 Practice area definitions
• IFLR1000 Practice area by jurisdiction submission deadlines - Western Europe
• IFLR1000 Practice area by jurisdiction submission deadlines - Central and Eastern Europe
• IFLR1000 Practice area by jurisdiction submission deadlines - Americas
• IFLR1000 Practice area by jurisdiction submission deadlines - Asia Pacific

Contents 

• Research cycle phases
• How to participate in IFLR1000/IFLR Awards
• Guidelines for the research templates
• How to submit 
• IFLR1000 Research methodology
• IFLR1000 Jurisdiction criteria
• IFLR1000 firm ranking and lawyer ratings
• IFLR Awards
• FAQs 

Research Cycle Phases

Europe, Middle East and Africa 

Western Europe: Submission Deadline - January 26, 2026

Research methodology

IFLR1000 evaluates law firms and lawyers by practice area within a jurisdiction based on transactional deal evidence and client feedback.

IFLR does not research arbitration, competition, disputes, employment, IP, life sciences, litigation, or tax work. Any work submitted that falls into these practice areas will not be taken into account. 

Transaction assessment criteria

IFLR1000 assesses transactions by their legal innovation or sophistication, the challenges they navigated and their impact on the market. Firms and lawyers that consistently – over several research cycles – advise on the most complex or innovative transactions in their markets, and whose excellent work is corroborated by clients, will be ranked or rated highly. See ‘Firm ranking and lawyer rating criteria’ section for more detail.

Jurisdiction criteria

IFLR1000 ranks firms according to the work undertaken by firms’ lawyers based in a jurisdiction.

A “jurisdiction” can refer to any jurisdiction with a distinct legal framework, including national jurisdiction and regional/state-level jurisdictions.

Only firms with an office in a jurisdiction licensed by a local bar association can be ranked in that jurisdiction’s rankings. Lawyers must be licensed and based in a country to be rated at a national level there.

IFLR1000 China

IFLR1000 China researches firms and lawyers in the provinces/municipalities listed below. The research is undertaken and published in Mandarin and English. Firms can submit work that falls into any of our core practice areas (see ‘Practice area ranking categories’ section).

• Beijing
• Chongqing
• Guangdong
• Jiangsu
• Shandong
• Shanghai
• Shaanxi
• Sichuan
• Tianjin
• Zhejiang
  
  

Practice area ranking categories

IFLR1000 ranks firms and lawyers by practice area. Our research focuses on financial and corporate and project development work. We assess work in the following practice areas (a financial and corporate ranking is based on all the types of work listed below excluding project development):

• Banking
• Capital markets
• Financial services regulatory
• Investment funds
• M&A / transactional private equity
• Project development
• Project finance
• Restructuring and insolvency

The practice areas we produce rankings for vary by country, depending on the breadth and depth of in a market and the degree of specialization that firms and lawyers have in the area.

Note - *We accept submissions from firms based anywhere in the world and will produce rankings for any jurisdiction where we have sufficient deal evidence and client feedback.

Firm ranking and lawyer rating criteria 

Our law firm rankings and lawyer ratings are based on three key criteria:

Deal evidence

In each research cycle we ask firms to provide deal highlights since January 1 of the previous year.

Deal evidence is the decisive factor to determine a firm’s ranking and lawyer’s rating. Firms submit work to us via the research form.

In the context of the jurisdiction and practice area, we assess deals on the basis of:

• Complexity
• Innovation
• Market impact

When making an assessment of firm’s work we also take into account:

• The volume of complex work a firm does in an area
• Evidence of a consistent high market share of complex deals in the jurisdiction and practice area
• Client feedback that corroborates the quality of work on deals
• Our own research, including deal intelligence gathered from IFLR Awards and IFLR editorial
• Statistical evidence of transactions values and volumes produced by external publications

Client feedback

We use client feedback to help us assess the quality of advice and service lawyers and firms are providing. We survey tens of thousands of corporate and in-house contacts provided to us by participating firms annually to ask their opinions on the firms and lawyers they use.

Client feedback is used in support of transactional evidence when determining a firm’s ranking or lawyer’s rating. What this means is good feedback alone will not ensure a firm or lawyer is ranked or rated, a firm or individual must be experienced in advising on significant work.

When you submit you should try and provide referees for all the lawyers at the firm you feel should be rated. A lawyer working on significant matters who receives a reasonable amount of good client feedback is more likely to be rated.

Increasing response rate of referees

Some ways we have found increase the number of referees who respond to our survey are:

• Confirm that your referees are happy for us to contact them before you provide their details to us.
• Only provide referees the firm has advised on work relevant to our rankings tables.
• Only provide referees the firm has advised on relevant work in the 18 months prior to submitting.
• Notify your referees when we will be contacting them. We email all firms in advance of contacting their referees with details about the email referees receive. 

Market insight

We conduct many interviews with practitioners, over the phone and in-person, to gather market intelligence. This allows us to gain a better understanding of market trends, so that we can better assess the significance of transactions and keep our rankings ahead of the curve.

IFLR1000 Practitioner Survey

During each research cycle we conduct a survey of lawyers to get their thoughts and feedback on the firms and lawyers in their markets. All partners and senior lawyers active in work relevant our research are invited to participate.

The annual Practitioner Survey is an opportunity for lawyers to provide evidence to support a Leading Lawyer rating and to have their say on our rankings and ratings.

Lawyers can provide us with recent examples of their work and details about their practice area and industry sector specialisms, which will be assessed when we evaluate our Leading Lawyer ratings.

Leading Lawyers

In addition to firm rankings, IFLR1000 also recognizes the work of outstanding individuals.

IFLR1000’s lawyer ranking categories are primarily based on transactional evidence, client feedback and peer recognition. When you highlight lawyers for a category in your submission, please include examples of each nominee’s work within the research cycle in the Deal Highlights section and referees (using the Client Referee Form) who can provide feedback on their work.

IFLR1000 only recognise lawyers in the jurisdiction where they are based.

Market Leader: This is the highest rating and recognises partners who are the true leaders in their practice area(s) and jurisdiction(s). These lawyers are actively leading on many of the most sophisticated, impactful and demanding transactions and are viewed as market leaders by clients and peers alike. Market Leaders will be backed by plenty of transactional evidence with demonstrable top-of-market expertise in their fields.

Women Leader: To be ranked Women Leader, lawyers must meet the criteria for Market Leader (stated above) or must hold high status within their market for their leadership abilities. Women Leaders should be well established in their practices and specialisms. See ‘Women Leaders’ section for more detail.

Highly Regarded: This is the second highest rating for individual lawyers in IFLR1000. It recognises partners who have outstanding deal records in the practice in question and are highly regarded by clients and peers. Highly Regarded lawyers will be actively leading on complex and innovative transactions and will be well established in their partnership. 

Expert Consultant: This rating recognises senior figures with strong name recognition who focus on consulting and building client relationships. These are individuals who may stepped back from the active client work to serve as rainmakers or figureheads for a practice. They may have taken on purely leadership and consulting roles but are seen by the market at large as influential thought leaders. 

Rising Star Partner: Lawyers who made partner relatively recently who are working on complex deals and are recommended by clients or peers. To be eligible for this rating, lawyers must have made partner within three years of the current submission deadline. Only lawyers who were promoted to partner within three years of the submission deadline are eligible for this rating.

Rising Star: Ones to watch – lawyers building their reputations in the market who are working on notable deals and are recommended by clients or peers. Only non-partners who qualified within 15 years of the submission deadline are eligible for this rating. Eligible candidates cannot have made partner and must have no more than 15 years post qualification experience.

Notable Practitioner: This rating recognises experienced and well-regarded lawyers who have developed recognised specialisms in relevant practice areas and have carved out a name and space for themselves in those areas. Rated lawyers will have records of advising on significant deals in the jurisdiction and practice area(s) in question, with demonstrable evidence of expertise, client-based and deal work in the field.

Women Leaders

IFLR1000 Women Leader is an elite ranking category reserved for the most prominent women lawyers across the world working in the areas of law IFLR1000 researches.

To be ranked Women Leader, lawyers must have outstanding reputations for working on complex or innovative deals or must hold high status within their market for their leadership abilities. Women Leaders must be working in the areas of financial and corporate transactions or regulation, or in contract, licensing or regulatory work related to project development to be eligible for this rating category.

IFLR1000 uses evidence submitted on research forms and client and peer feedback as the primary resource for Women Leaders' research. The research methodology follows that of IFLR1000’s leading lawyers.

The best way to nominate Women Leaders for consideration is through the annual IFLR1000 research cycle and be supported by deal evidence and relevant casework for each individual they nominate. 

Women Leaders 2026 will be based primarily on submissions made in 2025.

FAQs

Please review our list of most frequently asked questions for details on use of the accreditation portal, our submission process, ranking decisions, the research interview process and publications. If there’s a question we have not answered in our FAQs, please email our research team

IFLR1000 is part of the Legal Benchmarking Group.

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