Israel is one of the fastest growing jurisdictions in Chambers Global and 2022 has been no exception to that trend. The number of ranked lawyers for Israel has exceeded 500 for the first time, with especially notable increases of our Labour & Employment and Startups & Emerging Companies legal rankings.

Furthermore, a number of new sections have been introduced, whilst others have been renamed and expanded.

The most significant change to the guide is the removal of the TMT: Technology legal ranking table. Technology has fast become a dominant sector for the Israeli economy and this table inevitably had to cover a very large area, spanning privacy and data protection, specialist startup advice and M&A transactions relating to technology.

The ranking data and analysis has been provided by the Chambers Business Intelligence platform, which is a data-driven platform for law firms, allowing them to gain a unique look at the global legal market, competitor insights and gain actionable insights to support business decisions.

It was determined that Chambers should take a more granular approach to such a dynamic and exciting legal sector. Therefore, we have introduced a new ranking table called IT & Data Protection which will act as the primary replacement for TMT: Tech. The aim of this table is to provide focused coverage on law firms who specialise in IT issues, including privacy, data protection compliance, data transfers, licensing agreements, cybersecurity and software development.

The scope of this section and legal market analysis is much narrower than TMT: Tech; all work covering M&A transactions within the technology sector should be submitted to the Corporate/M&A table.

Meanwhile, all work focused on supporting technology startups should be submitted to the Startups & Emerging Companies table. Law firms and lawyers ranked in the old TMT: Tech table will have been reshuffled to one of these three sections where we felt they would be the most appropriately placed in the Chambers Global 2022 guide and legal rankings.

The Corporate/M&A family of sections has also been expanded, with the old Expertise Based Abroad sub table now acting as a standalone section called Corporate/M&A: International Firms.

We will be opening separate submissions for this section in future. With ever-increasing levels of foreign investment, both from the USA and elsewhere in the world, there has also been an increase in firms based outside of Israel advising on significant cross-border transactions. It is our aim that this new standalone table will provide improved coverage of these firms and that it will continue to expand in future.

Our Dispute Resolution coverage has become more sophisticated with the inclusion of an Arbitrators & Mediators subtable. This section recognises senior figures who have also made a name for themselves outside of appearing on disputes and instead acting as arbitrators themselves.

The final change to mention is the renamed IP: Prosecution subtable, which looks to expand the scope of the previous IP: Patents and Trade Mark Agents section. Work evidence for both of these sub tables should continue to be submitted to the main Dispute Resolution and Intellectual Property sections respectively.

It is our ambition that the above changes have created more robust, insightful coverage of the Israeli market. We are aiming to continue this expansion in future editions of the guide in to keep improving our representation of a critical jurisdiction.