Ellex shaping the Baltic legal market
Swedish research company Kantar Prospera has published the results of its annual survey of the Baltic legal services market. According to the views of several hundred respondents – including major business owners, board members, executives, and in-house lawyers – Ellex once again outperforms its peers and holds the leading position in the Baltic region.
In Lithuania, Ellex stood out particularly strongly across individual legal practice areas – in some cases, scoring almost twice as high as other firms. When the overall legal competence scores were aggregated across all practices, Ellex ranked more than 24% ahead of the next closest firm.
In Estonia, Managing Partner Martin Mäesalu commented, “We aim to set the standard in Estonia’s legal market – a name clients trust, talent seeks, and businesses rely on; a legal benchmark that allows our clients to focus on the future.”
Ellex in Latvia has achieved notable upward movements in the scores as the firm has climbed two places in the overall performance and strong reputation areas. Even stronger progress can be seen in the Tier 1A segment, regarding lawyers’ skills and in the market standing total score.
Additionally, Ellex in Latvia has advanced in several best legal competence areas, moving up in banking & finance, public procurement, private equity, and government relations. These results highlight strengthened client perception, especially in reputation, competence, and performance.
Clients highlighted Ellex’s unrivalled value of business advice, international competence, lawyers’ skills and experience in managing large projects, ability to assemble high-performing project staffing, etc. Ellex in Lithuania was also named the most recommended law firm.
The most meaningful recognition – because it comes from clients
“That feeling when ‘nothing new’ is actually very good news,” joked Rolandas Valiūnas, Managing Partner in Ellex Lithuania. “This recognition belongs to our clients – it reflects how they see us and how they see the market. We are truly grateful for their trust.”
Among the many rankings and awards in the legal sector, Kantar Prospera stands out as the most significant for Ellex, precisely because it is based solely on confidential client feedback.
The “Kantar Prospera Tier 1 Law Firm Review” overall performance score assesses law firms across 14 practice areas, understanding of the company’s problems and industry, business-focused legal advice, experience in large projects, service efficiency, project management skills, professional reputation, ethics, and many other client-driven criteria.
Clients seek both competitive pricing and access to top quality
The survey also shows that clients are increasingly focused on two priorities: faster access to legal services and more competitive pricing. Rūta Karpičiūtė, Partner responsible for business development and growth at Ellex in Lithuania, notes that this creates a paradox.
“Clients naturally want high-quality legal advice at a fair price – and the arrival of AI tools is likely to reinforce expectations of cost efficiency. But at the same time, clients are voicing stronger concerns about access to the very best legal expertise. They are not prepared to wait when the matter is critical. That means the gap between premium, complex legal work and routine day-to-day services will only widen, and the demand for top-tier advice is set to grow. We are pleased that the outstanding feedback we receive shows we are meeting expectations not only on quality and price, but also on access to highly qualified lawyers and professional legal services,” says Karpičiūtė.
Growth balanced with responsibility
This is already Ellex’s eighth major award this year, alongside recognition from IFLR Europe, Chambers Europe, Europe Women in Business Law, and many others. Ellex was recognized as the “Law Firm of the Year in the Baltic States” in four different awards.
“I am personally proud that we manage to balance the firm’s growth with our responsibility to the state – whether on governance, security and defence, or attracting foreign investment. These are areas I have devoted more time to this year than ever before. While my attention has been on these national challenges, I admire the commitment of my partners and colleagues in driving continuous improvements in client service and delivering this result. They are a league of professionals not only in law – and this award is proof of that,” adds Rolandas Valiūnas.
Covering all leading law firms in the region
The “Kantar Prospera Tier 1 Law Firm Review” evaluates law firms across multiple European markets. In the Baltics, it examines Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, before consolidating the findings into a regional ranking.
Baltic law firms have been included in the study for over a decade. This year, all the leading firms in the region participated, with a total of 375 client organisations surveyed between May and June 2025.
