The "Singapore's Best Law Firms 2022" lists are based on recommendations made by lawyers (peer-to-peer survey), in-house lawyers (corporate legal departments) and clients in 17 different fields of law.

The participant list of lawyers and others was drawn up via research conducted by Statista on company websites and other publicly available sources.

Invitations were sent by e-mail with a personalised link that could be used only once. In addition, lawyers and clients could participate in the survey via an open link that was announced and made available on The Straits Times' website.

The Singapore Corporate Counsel Association also invited its members - comprising general counsel and in-house lawyers - to take part in the survey.

In both cases, the participants had to provide a personalised company e-mail address for validation purposes, before their answers were included in the evaluation.

The survey was conducted online earlier this year and Statista recorded more than 12,000 recommendations from over 6,000 respondents.

Self-recommendations (recommendations from one's own, associated or allied law firm) were prohibited.

The participants were also asked to answer some optional editorial questions that were aimed to give a better insight into Singapore's legal world.

The nature of these questions was modified in relation to in-house lawyers/clients.

The law firms were ranked according to the number of recommendations they drew, and the top firms, from Top 20 to Top 5, were identified, depending on the category.

The websites of these law firms were additionally researched to help validate the outcomes.

• The list of Singapore's Best Law Firms 2022 can be accessed at https://str.sg/lawfirms22