WWL: Arbitration 2024 is the culmination of months of research by WWL and GAR. Our main Arbitration lawyers' report identifies 1,500 prominent lawyers recommended for their expertise in resolving complex international disputes. In addition, we highlight over 450 leading expert witnessess, selected for their excellence across a wide range of matters, and nearly 800 top Future Leaders aged 45 and under. Through nominations from peers and clients, the arbitrators, tribunal members, chairs and counsel listed have been recognised by their peers and clients as the leading names in the field.
We are proud to be able to share the results of this research with Lexology's readership of over 770,000 subscribers of the first time
By any metric, this was the largest volume of research WWL has ever collected on a single practice area, including over 14,000 individual comments on practitioners under consideration.
The 2024 research process saw thousands of practitioners and referees responded to our requests for feedback on the market, resulting in the listings see lawyers and expert witnesses from 96 countries listed, while more than 1,000 law firms, barristers’ chambers and consulting firms are represented. For the first time, we also looked at evidence of work highlights collected by our sister publication, GAR, as well as from publicly available sources, to assist our decision making
WWL does not rank firms or sets, only individual practitioners. The charts below show the firms and sets home to the most listed practitioners in this year’s guide.
These graphs are from WWL Performance Index, which provides a full market view of law firms by combining extensive data with client feedback, proprietary research and expert insight. Access the tool here.
Once again, White & Case came top in our listings by number of practitioners listed, while other top-tier international firms Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, King & Spalding, Clifford Chance, Herbert Smith Freehills and Debevoise & Plimpton all have 25 or more listings. Many firms now possess talented rosters of younger practitioners, including 9 firms now with more than 10 Future Leaders.
Among expert firms, FTI Consulting remains our number-one firm by number of total listings, but Secretariat and HKA continue to improve their standings while an unprecedented eight firms feature more than 15 experts listed.
WWL considered 5,235 practitioners for inclusion in our main Arbitration and Arbitration Expert Witnesses listings (not including Future Leaders). Of these, 1,880 practitioners were listed as recommended practitioners, while only 143 (2.57 per cent) were accorded our highest ranking of Global Elite Thought Leader.
The 95 lawyers and 48 expert witnesses selected were regarded as the very best by peers and clients, achieving the highest number of recommendations in the research.
In the Future Leaders category, we also name top practitioners as 'Most Highly Regarded', reflecting their excellent performance this year.
You can view the full lists of Global Elite Thought Leaders and Most Highly Regarded Future Leaders using the links below
Further details on our research process can be found on our Methodology page. If you have any feedback on our research, please email us at [email protected].