The Financial Times and its research partner RSG Consulting have devised a unique methodology to rank lawyers on innovation. Law firms and in-house legal teams are invited to submit their innovations. These are then fully researched through client, lawyer and expert interviews. No entry appears in the FT report without a robust client or independent reference. Market experts are also consulted on selected submissions.

For FT Asia-Pacific Innovative Lawyers 2015, we received 494 submissions and nominations. Submissions were received from 81 law firms and an additional 33 in-house teams were researched to create the Asia-Pacific rankings this year. Research was conducted between January and May 2015 by RSG researchers, who interviewed and received feedback from 323 clients, senior lawyers and executives.

Each category was divided into separate sections for firms headquartered within and outside the Asia-Pacific region.

Every law firm entry is scored out of 10 points on originality, rationale and impact with a maximum overall score of 30. Entries are benchmarked against each other to arrive at the final rankings. Lawyers are ranked for delivering exceptional value to business.

The In-house lawyers rankings are drawn from nominations as well as submissions, but all entries require third-party validation and commendation.

The FT Law 25 rankings are a pure aggregate of each firm’s scores for ranked submissions across the private practice categories. Separate rankings cover Asia-Pacific firms and international firms headquartered outside the region.

The 10 Innovative Individuals are selected from nominations and submissions to all categories of the report. They are selected on the basis of particularly strong client reviews, interviews, additional written responses and a history of professional achievement. A panel of judges from the FT and RSG selects the award winner from the shortlist of 10. This year, the judges were Michael Skapinker, FT associate editor, Rohit Jaggi, editor, FT Innovative Lawyers reports, Lindsay Fortado, FT Legal Correspondent, and Reena SenGupta, chief executive, RSG Consulting.

The RSG Consulting research team has more than 20 years’ experience analysing the legal profession. Ms SenGupta helped to launch the FT’s Law & Business page in 2001, and has since been a regular writer on the legal profession for the FT.

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