Chambers France 2026 highlights top law firms and best lawyers in France

Welcome to the Chambers France 2026 guide launch. Chambers France is now in its second year, and we are delighted to present the findings of this year’s edition. The 2026 Guide is the product of eight months of research with thousands of interviews conducted and submissions analysed by a team of nine French-speaking researchers, one Principal Research Specialist and the Head of France.

In this article we will focus on some key findings from our 2026 Guide research, including a brief overview of key statistics for the guide. We’ll highlight important legal trends in France, regulatory developments, AI adoption and clients’ evolving demands when partnering with law firms.

The Chambers France Guide is now in its second edition and ranks law firms and lawyers across 34 practice areas.

This year saw the introduction of 7 new practice area and subsections: Distribution/Commercial Contracts; Environment, Social and Governance (ESG); International Trade/WTO; Foreign Investments; Employment: Senior Executive; Public International Law; and Product Liability & Industrial Risks. Additionally, we renamed the Litigation section to Corporate/Commercial Litigation to highlight our focus on commercial disputes for this practice area. We also extended our coverage of the regional market with separate rankings for the France Regions in the South, South West, South East, West, North and East.

Employment, Public Law, White-Collar Crime and Intellectual Property saw the biggest increases in number of departments and lawyers ranked for 2026.

We received 1,826 submissions for this guide to the French legal market, which is an increase of 12% compared to 2025.

The highest number of submissions came from Corporate/M&A, Corporate/Commercial Litigation and Employment, highlighting the competitive nature of those markets.

The Chambers France 2026 Guide ranks 1,661 lawyers, which is also an increase of roughly 15% from 2025 and among which we count 167 Up and Coming lawyers.

Thanks to the firms’ contributions and the enthusiasm of clients to take part in our research, we have registered more than 9,000 interactions with the market this year, through calls with lawyers and clients and survey responses collected by the research team.

The past year in France has been characterised by ongoing political instability following the snap legislative election that took place in June 2024. Since then, France has seen a succession of governments and prime ministers and an inability to agree on the Budget in Parliament. Despite this, transactional activity has remained steady, in part thanks to sustained activity in the mid-market segment and the resilience of private equity deals. 

One major trend impacting transactions this year is the growing role played by foreign direct investment (FDI) considerations in deal processes. The political and geopolitical contexts in recent years have led the French state via the Treasury to extend the scope and sectors concerned by FDI fillings. Those changes are also mirrored on a European level and, as a result, law firms are investing more resources and building out dedicated Foreign Investment practices to assist clients with navigating those new challenges and regulatory constraints. 

White-Collar Crime and Investigations is another key area of activity in the French market in the past year. Alongside a couple of headline-grabbing political cases such as that of Sarkozy, the Parquet National Financier (PNF) remains extremely active with a strong focus on tax fraud cases.  

Finally, Restructuring/Insolvency activity is on the rise, with record numbers of bankruptcies registered in part due to the macro-economic situation and the end of Covid-era relief measures. The real estate, construction and retail sectors are particularly impacted. 

Among the many changes in the French regulatory landscape, perhaps one of the most significant in 2025 was in the field of arbitration, where the French government launched a reform of its arbitration framework.  

This is the third arbitration reform in France. It proposes a single arbitration code consolidating provisions, unifying its approach and broadening the scope of arbitration to cover areas that were traditionally excluded. Additionally, this reform sees an increase in powers of the juge d'appui as well as adding a mechanism to allow courts to help cover the cost of arbitrations.  

A contentious point of this reform surrounds the possible change of confidentiality rules in Investor-States disputes, where some who value transparency in the justice system are contesting the change.   

The consolidation of the Arbitration Code is to be expected mid-2026. 

Throughout this cycle of research, the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) was evident across all practice areas in France. The use of AI raises complex new legal issues, including lawyers and law firms having to address algorithm biases, privacy concerns, and liability issues, ensuring the AI use is both ethical and responsible.  

The appeal of AI for clients primarily revolves around the reduction of legal fees, given that it offers an alternative to performing low value-added tasks. Many, however, seem to still be wary, prompting law firms to offer clients their own in-house AI tools to enhance privacy controls when handling sensitive data. This approach also enables greater performance and interface customisation to suit client needs.   

Recruitment and training are also feeling the impact. Law firms note one of the challenges they currently face relates to training junior associates, in addition to questions on how to integrate AI and new technologies into their academic studies. 

As AI changes and evolves, legislative changes will likely follow suit, albeit slowly. For now, the delay between rapid technological advances and the slower-moving law is one of the most common issues on this topic.  

During our thousands of interviews with clients, many mention the increasingly challenging context they’re operating in. Geopolitical tensions, cost constraints and evolving regulatory environments, especially on ESG and AI, came up repeatedly as the key issues faced by GCs and in-house legal teams.

CFO, Technology Company

As a result of this tough environment, clients have high expectations for their external counsels in several key areas:

Expertise and high specialisation

Clients are working in fast-paced and changing regulatory environments and therefore expect their external counsels to stay on the pulse and be at the forefront of those changes. They also value the expertise lawyers gain by working across multiple clients and industries.

Founder, Technology Startup

Cost effectiveness

As ever, GCs are working under sustained budgetary constraints, which leads some of the work to be handled in-house. More importantly, external legal advice needs to be provided in a cost-effective manner, be highly strategic and bring high added-value so legal teams can justify the costs involved.

Legal Director, Engineering Company

Relationship building and team stability 

One aspect that should not be neglected remains the relationship built between the partner and the wider team and the client. Clients consistently highlight the need for longstanding relationships and stability within teams. This allows law firms to gain an in-depth knowledge of the client, its sector, risk appetite and company culture.

Governance Director, Manufacturing Company

2025 was again a great year for the legal sector in France. Practice areas such as White-Collar Crime and Restructuring/Insolvency saw an uptick in activity, while M&A and Private Equity transactional levels remained steady.

We are expecting revised EU-wide FDI guidelines in 2026 which will likely increase the need for advice on this topic and the strategic role played by foreign investments in transactions.

ESG regulations remain key for a few sectors such as real estate, infrastructure, energy and manufacturing. Businesses are also facing heightened risk of climate change and ESG disputes and greenwashing claims coming from NGOs and third parties.

Unsurprisingly, artificial intelligence will continue to shape the way legal advice is provided. Law firms and their clients need to be prepared to face questions on evolving regulations, privacy concerns, liability issues and training of junior team members.

Clients’ demands will continue to focus on greater cost-efficiency, specialisation and relationship building at the firm level. In a highly competitive legal market, Chambers France can assist clients with their choice of external legal counsel and help law firms distinguish themselves from competitors.

We would like to thank all firms, lawyers and clients that have taken part in our research for the 2026 guide – your input and knowledge is highly appreciated. We look forward to receiving your submissions in March and will start speaking with you all when research starts again in April 2026.

In the meantime, don’t hesitate to contact the Chambers France Team should you have any questions

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