Indigenous firms in Asia’s emerging legal markets keep making headway on head count. Chinese firms continue to hold the lead in total lawyers in Asia, but top firms in Korea and India have also expanded by leaps and bounds, raising their numbers by more than 65% since 2011, when the Asia 50 survey debuted. That far outpaces firms in Singapore and Australia, where growth has been much more modest.

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As a group, the 2019 Asia 50—the largest law firms based in the Asia-Pacific region—are home to 59,925 lawyers, up 5.6% from a year ago. That represents a relatively small step forward after last year’s Asia 50 showed a 20% leap in head count. The top of the ranking remains largely unchanged: Dentons and Yingke lead the Asia 50 with 9,795 and 7,572 global lawyers, respectively. In addition to those firms, 10 others from China, as well as Australia’s Ashurst (1,415), reported head counts of more than 1,000 lawyers last year.