Herzog Fox & Neeman has held on to top spot in the Globes - Duns 100 law firm rankings for 2016. Herzog Fox & Neeman had 276 lawyers as of December 31 2015 compared with 257 lawyers at Meitar Liquornik Geva Leshem Tal, which was also second last year. The gap between the top two has widened from 15 lawyers last year to 19 this year. However, the merger of 20 lawyers from Zellermayer Pellosof's Litigation Department led by Eyal Rosovsky with Meitar Liquornik means that the second placed law firm had 278 lawyers as of January 31 2016 and is challenging for top spot.
In third place, as last year, is Goldfarb Seligman with 222 lawyers, up from 210 last year. M. Firon has climbed to fourth place from eighth place last year with 175 lawyers after merging last year with half the firm of Epstein, Knoller, Chomsky, Osnat, Gilat, Tennenbaum & Co. Fischer Behar Chen Well Orion has slipped from fourth to fifth despite their number of lawyers increasing from 168 to 170.
The final months of 2015 and start of 2016 have seen the number of "defections" and mergers at the big law firms escalate as competition intensifies. In January, Erdinast Ben-Nathan took in 17 new lawyers from other firms, so that while Erdinast finished 2015 in 21st place with 70 lawyers, the new arrivals takes the firm well into the top 20.
Dun & Bradstreet business development manager Efrat Segev said, "The huge competition in the law firm sector can also be seen in the latest rankings of the largest law firms. It is clear to firms today that to continue to lead they must continually strengthen their expertise in various fields and create advantage in their size by building a package that can render their clients all legal services in Israel and worldwide."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on February 1, 2016
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