The 2027 FT Innovative Lawyers Asia-Pacific report, in which we explore key developments in the legal sector, is open for submissions. We are seeking entries that detail case studies of innovative work, in both the practice and the business of law, from law firms and in-house legal teams.
The most innovative submissions will be shortlisted for the accompanying FT Innovative Lawyers Asia-Pacific awards event, which will be held on Thursday May 6, 2027. Attendance will not affect a shortlisted firm’s ranking or potential to win. The shortlisted submissions will be featured in the FT Innovative Lawyers report, published in print and online on Friday May 7, 2027.
Submissions
Private practice categories
Law firms are invited to make a maximum of eight submissions across five areas: practice of law, responsible business, business of law, intrapreneur and innovative practitioner (not including the FT law firm index). Firms may submit up to three practice of law submissions and up to three business of law submissions, together with one responsible business, one intrapreneur and one innovative practitioner submission, up to a maximum of eight submissions in total. Firms wishing to make the maximum number of submissions overall will therefore have to deliver less than the maximum in one of the five categories (which may entail not submitting at all in the case of the three single-item categories). This means firms may choose how to weight their total submissions. Submissions will be assessed by the FT’s research partner, RSGI, using benchmarks, interviews, surveys and other research.
The three highest-scoring submissions across all the categories will comprise the firm’s innovation score in the overall FT law firm index. The index will also be based on scores for a firm’s use of data and technology, social impact and people strategies. These latter scores will be based on answers to the law firm index questionnaire (see below for more details).
Practice of law: submissions are invited from teams working in any legal practice, with a specific example or case study that demonstrates an evolution in the practice of law. The submissions should show how lawyers have innovated within a legal practice, created new standards, bridged professional disciplines, applied new ideas and delivered outstanding outcomes for clients, with originality and impact.
Firms are free to submit any innovative case study. RSGI will review the submissions received and determine categories accordingly. Previous years’ categories have included: energy, projects and infrastructure; technology; healthcare and life sciences; cyber security and data protection; sustainability; financing and private capital; disputes and crisis management. These are illustrative only and firms should not feel limited to these areas. (Up to three submissions per firm.)
Responsible business: submissions are invited that detail innovative ways in which firms are having an impact in addressing challenges of climate change, social injustice or social inequality. (Up to one submission per firm.)
For examples of work that has previously met the practice of law and responsible business submission criteria, last year’s practice of law case studies may be helpful.
Business of law: Submissions are invited from teams whose work shapes how the firm itself is run as a business — how it is structured, resourced, differentiated from competitors, or digitally enabled.
Firms are free to submit any aspect of the business of law they see fit. RSGI will review the submissions received and determine categories accordingly. Previous categories have included: digital tools (new digital products, digital tools for legal work, and tools for law firm operations); knowledge and data (including initiatives relating to internal knowledge management, data strategy or proprietary digital legal products); strategic direction; people strategy; talent management; new business models (new pricing, delivery or models for legal services). (Up to three submissions per firm.)
For examples of work that has previously met the business of law submission criteria, last year’s business of law case studies may be helpful.
Innovative practitioner: submissions are invited for individual legal practitioners who are innovators within their firm or practice. The submissions should show how the individual has changed the way legal work is done, how they have influenced their firm, industry, business or wider society, and how they are changing the way the firm works with clients. Please note that those who have already been profiled as individuals in a previous FT Innovative Lawyers report are not eligible for this category. (Up to one submission per firm.)
For examples of previously featured innovative practitioners, please see here.
Intrapreneur: submissions are invited for individuals who have acted as change makers within their firm. They can include, but are not limited to, senior leaders (but not managing partners) and departmental heads, and heads of innovation and transformation. We are interested in intrapreneurs who have helped their firms to change culture, behaviours and processes, and adapted them to be more relevant to their people and clients. Please note that those who have previously been profiled as innovative intrapreneurs, change makers or leaders in a previous FT Innovative Lawyers report are not eligible for this category. (Up to one submission per firm.)
For examples of previously featured intrapreneurs, please see here.
FT law firm index: participating firms will be asked to respond to a questionnaire covering use of data and technology, people and talent, and social responsibility policies. These responses will be scored and benchmarked against other law firms to help calculate the firm’s position in the overall FT law firm index.
For last year’s FT law firm index for Asia Pacific, please see here.
Corporate law department categories
In-house legal teams are invited to make up to four submissions, in any of the following categories. Please also include contact details for the chief legal officer and a referee from another member of the C-suite who can be available for interview.
Commercial and strategic partners: submissions are invited from legal teams that have helped deliver more value within the business or to the business’s external customers. Examples may include: enabling business growth or transformation; the redesign of legal processes to improve customer experience.
New products and services: submissions are invited from legal teams that have helped devise new products, services or revenue streams for the business.
Operational transformation: Submissions are invited from legal teams that have introduced new processes or new ways of working to improve how they operate. Examples may relate to the management and operations of the legal function and generative AI use throughout the function.
Digital solutions: Submissions are invited from legal teams that have adopted or developed new digital tools in the department, or digitised a specific process, including use of generative AI.
Outside counsel management: submissions are invited from legal teams that have introduced approaches to better manage work allocation and collaboration with outside legal advisers.
People and skills: submissions are invited from legal teams that are building skills and capabilities in new ways. We are interested in new approaches to working in teams and engaging individuals. Examples may relate to the legal team, or the role the legal team is playing in helping the business to adapt.
Sustainability and responsible business: submissions are invited from legal teams that are helping their businesses and industries to meet sustainability goals. Examples may also cover legal teams’ initiatives to address challenges of social injustice, social inequality, or inclusion and diversity.
For examples of work that has previously met the corporate law department submission criteria, last year’s case studies (listed at the end of the article) may be helpful.
How the report and the awards are assessed
The report will feature descriptions of a selection of the submissions received along with articles. The submission deadline is January 22, 2027. The research process will run from January to May. The report will be published with the Financial Times newspaper on Friday May 7, 2027 and an awards ceremony will be held on Thursday May 6, 2027 at the Asia Society Hong Kong Centre, Justice Drive, Admiralty, Hong Kong.
There is no cost for submitting entries, but the project will be subject to the terms and conditions outlined in detail below.
The research partner for the FT Innovative Lawyers programme is RSGI, a research and intelligence agency with decades of experience analysing the legal industry.
How to submit entries
All submissions must be made via the online submissions form at https://ftinnovativelawyers.highq.com/. Please email [email protected] to set up an account for the submission portal with your name, organisation and email address — or to resolve any queries.
Submission format
All private practice law firm submissions must provide the following details and address the criteria set out below. Please note that word limits are enforced in the online entry forms.
The challenge: What commercial problem or business issue is being solved? (75-word limit)
Description of the innovation: A brief description of the individual, team or initiative. (75-word limit)
Originality: why is the individual, team or initiative innovative? Which elements are most original? (200-word limit)
Leadership: what role did the lawyers, firm, individual or legal department play? For which aspects of the solution, approach or implementation were the lawyers responsible? How did you arrive at the specific approach or solution that was finally adopted? (200-word limit)
Impact: what was the impact of the innovation for the client, firm or key stakeholders? How can its success be measured? Where did the lawyers deliver the most value? Please include hard evidence. (200-word limit)
References: all submissions must include contact details for at least one internal and at least one client, or other external, reference, who can be contacted to discuss the details of the innovation on a confidential basis.
Rules for submitting
Time period: the 2027 ranking will assess innovations instituted from July 1, 2025 onwards. Please note that entries shortlisted for the 2026 awards will not be eligible.
Submissions must be no longer than 750 words in total, written in English and answer each of the questions on the entry form.
Eligibility
To be eligible for the private practice categories, submitters must be an entity registered and regulated as a law firm in its home jurisdiction, owned and led by lawyers in a manner consistent with the regulatory norms of that jurisdiction. RSGI reserves the right to determine eligibility, including where an entity’s structure, registration or regional presence is unclear, and to move or exclude submissions accordingly.
These eligibility criteria apply to the core law firm categories only; they do not apply to in-house legal team categories, the responsible business category, or, where included, a category such as New Business Models, which may fall outside this definition.
Eligibility is determined by where the lawyers carrying out the qualifying work are based, not by the location of the firm’s headquarters, registered entity, or client. For the purposes of this report, eligible markets in Asia-Pacific are: China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and the Asean nations.
Submitters should identify clients and other parties to a transaction wherever possible. If this information is kept confidential, submissions may be omitted from the final published shortlist.
Assessment of submissions
Submissions will be fully researched and will be assessed on their own merits. The RSGI research team also uses independent experts in the assessment process. Entries will be judged against other submissions in each category.
Innovations and innovators will be scored for their originality, leadership and impact out of a total of 30 points.
Client references are a critical part of the assessment process. Contact details for internal and client or external referees must be included on every submission.
All submissions are assessed by RSGI, whose research process includes interviews with clients, submitting lawyers and experts. The submissions are then scored against a bespoke ranking methodology, devised for the FT, to assess innovation in law firms.
The rankings will be based primarily on submissions received but will also include fresh research, surveys and other qualitative research methods to uncover legal innovation in the region.
Assessment criteria will be based on local norms and benchmarks of innovation.
Awards and report schedule
January 22, 2027 — deadline for submissions
Early April 2027 — awards shortlists revealed
Thursday May 6, 2027 — awards event
Friday May 7, 2027 — report publication on FT.com and with the Financial Times newspaper
Contact details
For research/submission questions please contact RSGI at [email protected].
For editorial enquiries please contact Harriet Arnold at the FT at [email protected] (please put ILAP in the subject field).
For advertising opportunities or other research sponsorship opportunities, please contact Paul Holman, account director, at [email protected], +44 (0)7999 407 760
For enquiries about the awards event, please contact [email protected].
Important information
There is no fee for entering submissions to FT Innovative Lawyers Asia Pacific 2027.
The researchers reserve the right to move entries from one category to another if they feel it appropriate. The researchers’ decisions are final and no correspondence will be entered into.
The FT and RSGI accept no responsibility for the loss or damage of material submitted.
The FT reserves the right to publish the names of the firm or lawyers contained in the shortlist of outstanding entries, details and description of all entries and details of winners. All entrants grant the FT a perpetual, non-exclusive licence to publish details and descriptions of entries as referred to, and also agree to participate in publicity reasonably requested by the FT regarding their entry. The FT acknowledges that copyright in all entries remains vested with the entrants.
If you are shortlisted for, or win, an award, then the FT may at its discretion allow you to use the relevant FT Innovative Lawyers logo on your marketing materials. You acknowledge that FT is the owner of the logo and all related goodwill and agree that your use of the logo must be in accordance with any applicable FT branding guidelines in force from time to time or any instructions from the FT, that you will not use it as part of a composite mark or logo, and you will not use it in a manner which causes or is likely to cause confusion or a misleading association between your business and the FT, or damage to the FT’s goodwill or reputation, or to the validity of any FT trademark. The FT may terminate your right to use the logo at any time.
Please do not include any confidential information in your entry that you do not wish to enter the public domain because, while the FT will make reasonable endeavours to respect confidentiality, it cannot guarantee that such information will not be published as set out above. Any inclusion of confidential information in an entry is at the entrant’s sole risk and responsibility and in knowledge of the FT’s advice not to do so.
The FT reserves the right to cancel, postpone or suspend FT Innovative Lawyers Asia Pacific 2027 at any time and to exclude any entries which it considers a) are inappropriate b) or do not comply with these terms and conditions or c) could breach sanctions. False or deceptive entries will render the entrant ineligible and such entries will be discarded. The FT’s determination will be final as to which region an entry is for/from.
The FT and RSGI cannot accept responsibility for, or liability arising from, entrants taking part in the awards. To the fullest extent permissible by law, the FT and RSGI exclude liability for all loss, damage or claim arising as a result of your entry to FT Innovative Lawyers Asia Pacific 2027.
These terms and conditions shall be governed by and construed in accordance with English law. Disputes arising in connection with the awards shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the English courts.
By submitting an entry, entrants will be deemed to have read, understood and agreed to these terms and conditions on behalf of their firm or organisation.
The submitter warrants that it has obtained all necessary consents required under applicable data protection and privacy laws to allow the sharing of any personal data contained in the submission with the FT. Contact information will only be used for the purposes of assessing each submission and will be processed in accordance with our privacy policy.