The new Chambers High Net Worth guide

Chambers and Partners, the longstanding legal guide that ranks the best lawyers across the globe against one another, is soon to publish a new guide in the Summer – the Chambers High Net Worth guide.

As opposed to the traditional Chambers directories, which are aimed at a corporate audience, the editors are keen to create a guide aimed solely at High Net Worth Individuals (HNWIs), particularly international HNWIs. The rankings, research and write-ups for all of the recommended firms will therefore place much greater significance on the services provided to HNWIs. The list of rankings will also be shorter, focusing only on the best of the best HNWI advisors (usually around 20 firms for each category).

One of the major differences for the HNW guide is that the editors will not only be ranking law firms. The editors are researching the full circle of advisors around HNWIs, and firms ranked will include wealth management firms, trust services companies, companies providing private banking services, and accountancy and tax firms. There will also be several categories unique to London, including property estate agents, property buying agents, yacht brokers and speciality ship yards.

Whilst this is an idea that has been circulating around the Chambers team for sometime, the editors of the HNW directory have purposely kept the guide under the radar in its inaugural year. The research process may have passed by many HNWI advisors completely, and this is unsurprising – there has been little fanfare around the process, and firms were not asked to provide detailed submissions, as is usually required for Chambers and Partners.

Instead, the researchers have taken the Chambers guides as their starting point, and, focusing only on those categories relevant to HNWIs, have conducted telephone research with select ranked law firms to assess the marketplace and the key players in each category. These conversations have helped to shape the rankings for the recognised law firms as well as the wider circle of advisors.

The list of those firms recognised in this year’s HNW Guide (due to be published in mid-June) is already confirmed, and the majority of firms should already have been contacted regarding their rankings in the guide. Once the HNW guide has been published, the research process will begin again in the Autumn. Next year, law firms wishing to be recognised by the directory will be able to provide submissions. Other advisors, however, will have to wait before they can do so – the research process for non-legal firms will be based on other recommendations for several years yet.

If you have any questions regarding the inaugural edition of the HNW Guide, or regarding rankings and/or submissions in next year’s submission, please contact us on 020 7287 2575, or email .