Our methodology
A directory is only worth what it is willing to publish about itself. Here is who awards the tiers you see, what we add to them, and what this site does not establish.
The tiers are not ours
The ranking shown on each practice-area page is the Legal 500 ranking for Belgium. We reproduce it as it stands: same composition, same levels, no firm added or removed, no tier changed.
We reproduce it rather than manufacture one because ranking law firms requires work we have not yet done: interviewing in-house teams, verifying recent matters, cross-checking referee feedback. Legal 500 has been running those interviews for decades. Building an in-house scale from public data alone would have produced something that looks like an assessment without being one — and someone choosing a lawyer deserves better than a hierarchy that merely looks serious.
“Firms to watch” reproduces their own category, which sits below the last tier, not above the first.
Neither Legal 500 nor Chambers is a partner of this site, endorses it, or funds it, and we take no data from Chambers.
The one place where we do the ranking
Legal 500 draws no distinction between firms in the same tier. They still had to be displayed in some order. So we order them by the number of Belgian practice areas in which Legal 500 lists them, broadest first, with the firm name breaking ties.
That figure is shown on every card and anyone can recount it. It is the only place in the ranking where we intervene, and it is stated on every practice-area page.
What this second criterion measures: the breadth of a practice. What it does not measure: the quality of the work. Within the same tier, a three-lawyer boutique and a three-hundred-lawyer firm are treated as equals by Legal 500, and it is the tier that counts — not the position within the column.
What a tier tells you, and what it does not
A Tier 1 tells you a firm is recognised by its peers and clients across a whole practice area. It does not tell you it is the right one for your matter: the same team can be excellent on an industrial acquisition and ill-suited to a family business sale, and the tier does not separate the two.
It tells you nothing about price, about whether the partner who pitches will be available, or about whether your file will be handled by them or by a second-year associate. Those three questions decide most engagements.
Finally, listing with Legal 500 starts from a submission by the firm. A practice that does not file appears nowhere — not there, not here. That under-represents boutiques and firms that do no business development, and it is the main limit of this edition.
How we cut the practice areas
This directory covers seven areas of business law, fed by fourteen Legal 500 tables, for 270 firm × area positions and 110 firms.
Some of our areas group several Legal 500 tables: “ICT, digital & technology” brings four together, “Dispute resolution” two. Where a firm is ranked in more than one, we show its best tier, and every page states which source table that tier comes from.
The scope is deliberately narrow. We would rather cover seven areas properly, with Belgian context and a guide to choosing, than thirty as bare lists.
What a firm cannot do
No position is for sale. There is no paid tier, no sponsored placement and no affiliate link on this site. A firm cannot pay to enter an area, or to move up a tier.
That is not a promise, it is a consequence: we do not award the tiers. There is nothing to negotiate with us, and anyone can verify every position at the source.
What we do not publish yet
No fees, no team sizes, no representative matters, no client references. We have no reliable source for those, and an approximate figure about fees is worse than no figure at all.
Fee transparency is our priority for the next edition: it is the question companies ask most often and the one existing directories serve worst. It is also the day this site stops being a commentary on somebody else’s ranking.
Corrections
If something about you is inaccurate, write to us: we correct factual errors unconditionally and without anything in return. We do not change a tier, however — that is a matter for Legal 500 — and we do not remove an accurate entry at the request of the firm concerned.
Questions about the method
Who awards the tiers shown on this site?
Legal 500, not us. The tiers are from its most recent Belgian edition, reproduced unmodified. We do not yet run practitioner interviews and therefore produce no hierarchy of our own. We take no data from Chambers, even though both publications are references on the Belgian market.
So what part of this ranking is yours?
The order within each tier, and nothing else. Legal 500 draws no distinction between firms at the same level; we sort them by the number of Belgian areas in which they are listed, a figure shown on every card. The rest — who is ranked, and in which tier — is not ours. The day we run our own interviews the question will look different, and we will say so here before doing it.
Why reproduce someone else’s ranking rather than build your own?
Because a credible ranking rests on interviews we have not yet run. We began by publishing a factual typology with no hierarchy, which was honest but of little use to someone looking for a place to start. Reproducing an established ranking, crediting it and explaining its limits, serves the reader better than inventing an in-house scale or refusing any hierarchy at all.
Can a firm pay to appear, or to move up a tier?
No, and we would have no power to do so: we do not award the tiers. There is no paid offering on this site, no sponsored content and no affiliate link. Every position can be checked at the source.
What happens when a firm is ranked in several Legal 500 tables?
Some areas of this directory group several Legal 500 tables. Where a firm appears in more than one, we show its best tier, and the firm page states the exact source table. The same firm can therefore be Tier 1 in one area and Tier 4 in another.
Is a firm missing from this site any less good?
No. A firm absent from Legal 500 is absent from here, and listing with Legal 500 starts from a voluntary submission. Many excellent boutiques do not file. The Belgian bar has several thousand business lawyers; this directory lists 110.
How often is the data updated?
This edition is dated 2026. We re-read the Legal 500 indexes whenever a new Belgian edition is published, and we correct factual errors on a rolling basis. Three crossings were already removed between our initial pass and the index check: a firm that loses its ranking disappears from here too.
Does this replace legal advice?
No. This directory helps you identify firms and prepare a first meeting. The explanatory content describes general frameworks and may change; it does not account for your situation. For a decision, consult a lawyer.