worldlaw Profiles 2008

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Preface

Welcome to Worldlaw Profiles 2008, the leading guide to the world’s law firms and legal markets. Since it was first published in 1996 as Asialaw Profiles, Asia Law & Practice’s flagship legal guidebook has reported on the biggest deals around the world, reflecting the increased level of globalization and the cross-border nature of deals. To more accurately reflect what the book has become – a truly global guide to the world’s law firms and legal markets – Asialaw Profiles is now known as Worldlaw Profiles. With more firms listed and more countries covered, Worldlaw Profiles 2008 is our most comprehensive edition of the guidebook to date.

Worldlaw Profiles’ traditional focus on Asia is complimented by expanded chapters on the law firms and legal markets in most of the world’s key jurisdictions. And this year, because of this expanded coverage, Worldlaw Profiles 2008 is in two volumes. Volume I covers Asia and Australasia, and Volume II covers the rest of the world. 

Worldlaw Profiles 2008 is a reference guide for corporate executives, in-house counsel, lawyers at local and international firms, and anyone with a professional interest in the world’s legal markets. Worldlaw Profiles combines an editorial overview of the legal environment in each jurisdiction with a specialist directory section containing the contact details and in-depth profiles of many leading regional and international law firms. As always, the editorial sections are completely independent from the directory sections of the publication.

The editorial sections of Worldlaw Profiles 2008 are independently-written summaries of the most important legal developments and deals in each practice area. During their research, our writers travelled widely and interviewed hundreds of lawyers and related professionals around the world. Many more interviews were conducted by telephone and email, and law firms in all jurisdictions were invited to provide information about significant deals and cases on which they worked. We would like to offer our sincere thanks to everyone who assisted with our research.

Introducing a newly-expanded format, the editorial sections of Worldlaw Profiles provide quick-reference information through three types of tables in each key practice area. Firstly, new editorial tables highlight law firms’ notable clients, key practitioners and significant expertise. Secondly, editorial tables reveal the winners of the 2007 Asialaw Leading Lawyers survey, for which over 19,000 in-house counsel, corporate executives and private practitioners were invited to nominate lawyers who, in their opinion, have consistently excelled in particular fields of legal practice over the past year. Thirdly, editorial tables recognize the firms which were ranked for the 2006 Asialaw IP Awards, based on: a survey of over 6,000 in-house counsel, private practitioners and business executives; votes by a judging panel of over 100 in-house counsel who look after their companies’ IP interests in the Asia-Pacific region; and comprehensive editorial research.

The directory sections of Worldlaw Profiles 2008 present information that has been supplied by law firms (unless otherwise stated). Law firms in all countries were invited to participate, either with a simple directory entry, or a directory entry combined with a detailed profile of their services. The law firm directory at the end of each chapter contains the entries of all participating firms. Those firms that have also provided profiles of their services can be identified by the cross-reference details on top of their directory entries, indicating the pages on which their profiles can be found. We would like to thank all of the law firms that have participated in the directory sections of Worldlaw Profiles 2008.

We welcome your feedback on any part of Worldlaw Profiles 2008 and trust that it will be a useful tool in understanding the world’s legal markets and in identifying and selecting new legal advisers.