New Jersey firms advised corporations in five of the state’s top 65 public transactions in 2005 — the best showing by home-grown practices in years and a salute to the power of long-term relationships in getting securities work. [See chart.]

Otherwise, this year’s list of lawyers in the state’s $50.9 billion market of mergers and acquisitions for the past year looks familiar: a sea of national firms dotted by the occasional local operation.