Overview Global Practice Area Definitions Practice Area Definitions: Asia-Pacific Practice Area Definitions: Canada Practice Area Definitions: Europe Practice Area Definitions: Latin America Practice Area Definitions: UK Practice Area Definitions: UK Bar Practice Area Definitions: USA High Net Worth Category Definitions Practice area definitions: Brazil Practice Area Definitions: Litigation Support and Crisis & Risk Management Practice Area Definitions: France AMECO (Africa, Middle East, Caribbean and Offshore) Practice Area Definitions
Practice Area Definitions: Litigation Support and Crisis & Risk Management
Litigation Support
Asset Tracing & Recovery
Asset tracing firms assist law firms and client companies with judgment and arbitral award enforcement and conduct investigations to identify financial and other assets around the world. They are often used by clients seeking to enforce legal claims against sovereigns.
Business Intelligence & Investigations
Litigation intelligence firms help companies and law firms collect evidence and conduct investigations. These firms use a mix of open-source information and specialist human intelligence gathering to find admissible evidence for use in commercial litigation, international arbitration, criminal and regulatory proceedings. Many of these firms also handle asset tracing operations and conduct internal investigations.
Costs Lawyers
Costs Lawyers draft costs schedules, represent clients, insurers and law firms in disputes over legal fees, and often offer expert witness services on legal costs.
Economic Analysts
Economic Analysts conduct valuations through the analysis of macroeconomic and company financial data. In a dispute, parties might call on economic analysts to determine quantum of damages and to defend these valuations as expert witnesses in court.
eDiscovery
eDiscovery vendors offer technological and service-based solutions to large electronic document review and discovery/disclosure processes. Many firms featured in this category employ Technology Assisted Review software platforms to create efficiencies in the process.
Forensic Accountants
Forensic accountants investigate transactions or businesses, often in connection with alleged fraud or in insolvency matters. Parties in litigation often rely on forensic accountants to conduct investigations, analyse financial evidence, produce reports and appear in court as expert witnesses.
Litigation Funding
Litigation funders provide capital for parties in legal disputes, in return for an interest in the final judgment. Some funders also provide portfolio funding to law firms, to assist with working capital and create reliable income streams secured against a portion or all the firm’s disputes matters. In the most developed markets, we cover specialist funders who focus on specific practice areas such as IP, insolvency claims and divorce matters in practice-specific sub-tables.
Litigation Funding Brokers
Litigation finance brokers match claims to funding sources. Most broker after-the-event (ATE) insurance as well as litigation funding.
Litigation PR & Communications
Litigation PR includes media relations in a disputes or investigations context, strategic communications with shareholders, employees, clients and other stakeholders, class action/group litigation book building and profile-raising campaigns.
Witness Familiarisation & Training
These firms help to familiarise prospective witnesses with the court process and court etiquette rules. They do not coach witnesses on the facts of the case in which they are due to appear, but they can teach them how to respond calmly and appropriately to questioning. Some of these firms use practising barristers as trainers.
Crisis & Risk Management
Crisis Management
This category is for law firms which help clients respond to acute crisis situations, such as regulatory investigations and criminal prosecutions, business critical or “bet the company” litigation matters, supply chain issues and allegations of international human rights abuses, and responses to workplace bullying and harassment matters and #MeToo issues. Risk-focused advice outside of a crisis is covered in other categories in this guide, depending on the nature of the risk.
Crisis PR & Communications
Leading crisis PR firms help companies and individuals communicate effectively during a crisis. They can also create communications strategies to help clients prepare for a crisis.
Cybersecurity Risk
Cybersecurity firms help to protect a company’s IT systems against hacks, unauthorised access and other attacks, and assist with breach responses. They provide tools, training and advice on risk management, security best practices and technology implementation, threat hunting, and incident response capabilities.
Economic Risk
Economic Risk consultants analyse economic issues and advise their clients on financial modelling, quantification of loss and related issues. They often use proprietary financial and economic databases and econometric, statistical and graphical software to analyse large datasets, prepare expert witnesses for depositions and trials, and advise on quantum of damages in disputes matters.
Environmental, Social & Governance Risk
This category covers risk-focused advice to in-house lawyers, risk teams and boards on ESG matters outside of an acute crisis. Examples include supply chain audits, sustainability audits and advice, governance, corporate social responsibility, putting in place employee whistle-blower processes, business and human rights advice, and sustainability projects.
Law firms in this area assist companies through their established expertise in related practice areas such as environmental law, business and human rights, sustainable finance, corporate governance, employee engagement and data protection. They advise on financing renewable energy projects, sustainable supply chain management or dispute resolution during remediation processes.
Agencies in this area provide services such as supply chain sustainability reporting, impact assessments of business operations on the local environment or mapping out plans to remediate human rights abuses.
Investigative Due Diligence
Investigative due diligence firms conduct pre-transactional investigations to identify and assess market and counterparty risks in the context of M&A deals, investments, joint ventures, outsourcing agreements and other strategic business decisions. They use a mix of human-source intelligence and investigative data gathering techniques as well as open-source intelligence.
Political Risk
Political Risk firms help clients manage the impact of geopolitical, macroeconomic and global social factors. These firms analyse an entity’s current stakeholder exposure, conduct stress testing and scenario planning exercises, and analysis of political exposures associated with proposed transactions or investments, as well as ongoing monitoring of emerging risks and opportunities.
Technology-Led Due Diligence
Technology-led due diligence firms use open-source and proprietary data, machine learning, AI and other data analytics tools to conduct counterparty due diligence for M&A deals, investments, joint ventures, outsourcing agreements and other strategic business decisions.
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