The Legal 500 assesses the strengths of law firms in over 100 jurisdictions and highlights the practice area teams who are providing the most cutting edge and innovative advice to corporate counsel. The Legal 500 is an independent guide, and firms and individuals are recommended purely on merit, with research based on feedback from 250,000 clients worldwide.

“It is imperative that law firms adapt to the rapidly changing economic and business landscape and provide advice that matters. At CDH we continually strive to assist our clients by tailoring solutions to their specific needs. Our in-depth expertise across numerous key sectors shines through and we are proud to be recognised in an international ranking of this nature,” says CDH CEO Brent Williams.

CDH was recommended as a Top Tier Firm for Commercial, Corporate and M&A, Dispute Resolution and Real Estate. The firm has also been recommended for Banking and Finance, Competition, Construction, Employment, Mining, Projects and Infrastructure and Tax. Several practitioners are listed in the esteemed “leading lawyers” list, namely Ludwig Smith for Banking and Finance, Willem Jacobs for Commercial, Corporate and M&A, Chris Charter for Competition, Tim Fletcher for Dispute Resolution, Attie Pretorius and William Midgley for Real Estate and Emil Brincker for Tax.

CDH is seen as ‘first choice’, ‘uniformly good’ and a dominant force in domestic and cross-border M&A, with a healthy mix of listed company, private equity and general corporate clients.

In Dispute Resolution the firm is ‘proactive’, ‘responsive’ and is praised by a client for ‘understanding our industry well’.

Furthermore, CDH provides ‘a brilliant service’ that sticks within budgets and advice that is ‘invariably commercially relevant’ on Employment issues.

CDH is seen as especially strong in transactions and regulatory matters, particularly in the platinum sector, but also in gold and coal. The ‘pragmatic and reliable’ CDH also has an excellent record in renewable energy and infrastructure work.

Active across the continent, the ‘outstanding’ CDH ‘goes the extra mile’ and is, according to sources, ‘in a league of its own’, with the largest real estate team in South Africa.

“As a firm we continue to make a number of significant appointments as we deepen our expertise in key sectors of the market to ensure the advice we provide is at the cutting edge both locally and across Africa,” adds Williams.

Thank you to our clients for choosing CDH as your business partners. We could not achieve international rankings of this stature without the ongoing support of each and every one of you; and for that, we salute you.