Asia-Pacific Legal Trends: Regulation, Reform and Private Credit

We recently launched the Asia-Pacific Guide 2026, ranking the best lawyers and leading law firms in Asia and Australasia. As part of our rigorous research process, we registered more than 27,000 interactions with practitioners, clients and partners in 30 territories. Their insights shine a light on the developments affecting legal practice in different jurisdictions. 

This year, we’ve covered more of the market, including 1,053 firms in the ranking guide. We saw particular growth in firms from India, Singapore and Australia, reflecting the thriving legal landscape in these countries. We also feature more individual ranked lawyers than ever before: 6,197 in total made it into the tables. 

To ensure the best and most accurate reflection of the region’s diverse markets, we’ve made several adjustments to the ranking tables this year. For example, Japan has a new table for Shipping, while Indonesia now has a table for Start-ups & Emerging Companies. We’ve also introduced new ranking tables for barristers and sets for Australia Media & Defamation, and Asia-Pacific (APAC) Arbitration. 

View the Asia-Pacific Guide 2026 

This is a vast region spanning the Central Asian republics, the Indian subcontinent, the Pacific islands and everything in between. Each jurisdiction has its own unique environment and set of factors driving change.  

Overall, however, we can say that the region has seen robust private equity (PE) and venture capital (VC) activity, driven chiefly by Japan and India, with technology and healthcare sectors leading the charge. 

The introduction of US tariffs has caused some disruption to clients, while regulation and reform are on the increase in several jurisdictions. This includes data privacy crackdowns in India and South Korea as well as corporate governance reforms in Japan.  

For the first time this year, we’ve published a report looking at the major market trends in more detail, alongside exclusive video interviews with in-house counsel. Find all this in the Asia-Pacific Guide 2026. 

As part of the launch, I sat down with two senior legal leaders from JERA and Tata Consumer Products for a fascinating chat about the changing role of the GC, regulatory developments, the role of AI and LegalTech, and how clients work with law firms. 

Both of them emphasised the fact that today, the GC is expected to be a strategic advisor to the business, playing a leading role in guiding decisions across areas such regulatory and geopolitical challenges, strategic company growth and litigation risk. 

They also revealed their changing expectations about the law firm relationship and legal work shared with external counsel, as internal resources and levels of expertise evolve. 

Watch the video interviews with our in-house counsel contributors: 

Rishi Gautam, Global General Counsel, Tata Consumer Products 

Kenji Tagaya, Executive Officer, Head of Legal & Secretariat Division, JERA 

This is a major area of development to watch. Several key jurisdictions are ramping up their consumer data protection rules. This is driven not only by the expansion of technology including AI, but also by public backlash over high-profile data breaches. South Korea, Malaysia and India are all seeing this play out. 

Corporate governance in Singapore’s traditionally light-touch environment has also picked up, following financial scandals. Meanwhile Japan has undergone the later stages of its own corporate governance reforms aimed at increasing transparency and attracting international investors. The surge in capital inflow to the country suggests these measures are having the desired effect. 

Dive deeper into the APAC region’s Regulatory Environment 

In-house teams are definitely adopting AI tools for internal work processes, and they’re telling us this helps them save time and money by reducing the need to send more routine work to external counsel.  

Interestingly, those clients who adopt AI are keen to know whether their law firm partners are also harnessing the technology to improve efficiency. 

While there is some evidence of caution in some parts of the market, the general pace of adoption is swift. We expect growing demand for legal guidance to navigate the emerging regulations and potential liability risks. 

Learn more in this chapter: AI and LegalTech Revolution 

Across APAC, law firm relationships remain central to navigating complex transactions, regulatory shifts and cross-border disputes.  Our research this year has re-underlined the importance clients place on finding the right external counsel. 

Key considerations that came out are: 

Competition and cost-cutting drives are putting pressure on law firms, but companies continue to value external advisors, particularly on the most complex matters. 

Learn more about client expectations: Partnering with Law Firms 

Find market insights, expert commentary and in-house counsel interviews in our new Asia-Pacific Guide Launch 2026. 

Access the Guide