Khaitan & Co topped the list of 13 domestic law firms’ M&A mandates by value of deals done with $18.7bn worth of transactions, followed by AZB & Partners which topped the list of deals by value, with 43 transactions worth $15.4bn.

Khaitan and AZB were ahead of Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas (CAM), both in terms of volume and value of transactions. CAM acted on the biggest deals in the last two quarters of mergermarket’s rankings, while in terms of volume of deals it was at rank three in Q2 as well.

Deal values shot up since previous quarter for the top two firms, whereas CAM with $13.1bn worth of deals also hit more than double the deal value of the first half of the year.

Vaish Associates, which had an early advantage on Big Law this year with two big deals worth $2bn until the first half of the year, was pushed to the lower ranks by J Sagar Associates (JSA) with 20 deals worth $8.7bn, Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas (SAM) with 26 deals worth $5.6bn and S&R Associates with three deals worth $3.3bn.

Vaish only made a marginal addition to its deal value from Q2, with 4 deals worth $2.9bn by Q3.

SAM slipped a rank each on both the value and volume table, now ranking fifth, even though its deal value rose by five times.

Trilegal, which acted on one more M&A than SAM, did not make it to the top advisors by volume, with its 27 deals worth $1.5bn.

Luthra & Luthra was the only Big Law firm with reported deal values cumulating to less than a billion ($814m). It acted on 13 transactions.

Mid-market

Nishith Desai Associates tripled its deal size since last quarter with 12 deals worth $2.1bn.

Veritas Legal – the relatively new firm of former AZB partner Abhijit Joshi, which had made an entry into the value rankings by Q2, doubled its deal value since Q2, with 14 deals worth $1.3bn.

Platinum Partners was ahead of Trilegal with $1.6bn from only 6 deals.

K Law and Wadia Ghandy slipped off the top 13 firms by value since Q2.

Smaller deals

Desai & Diwanji (16 deals), HSA Advocates (14) and Luthra & Luthra (13) were the only firms with lesser than a billion dollar worth of deals but among the top 10 firms by volume.

BMR Legal and Bathiya Legal recorded 10 deals each with Bathiya’s $22m worth od transactions second only to DSK’s $15m from 4 deals, in terms of the lowest deal values. BMR’s deal value rose to $354m – three times since Q2.

K Law, Tatva Legal, IndusLaw, Platinum Partners, PDS Legal, ELP, Wadia Ghandy and Phoenix Legal were the other firms with fewer than 10 deals.

Foreign law firm M&A rankings have been published separately.

Domestic firms M&A league tables based on volume

Rank	House	Value (US$m)	Deal Count
1	AZB & Partners	15,372	43
2	Khaitan & Co	18,764	42
3	Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas	13,141	36
4	Trilegal	1,491	27
5	Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas & Co	5,651	26
6	J Sagar Associates	8,744	20
7	Desai & Diwanji	621	16
8	Veritas Legal	1,299	14
9	HSA Advocates	277	14
10	Luthra & Luthra Law Offices	814	13
11	Nishith Desai Associates	2,135	12
12	BMR Legal	354	10
13	Bathiya Legal	22	10
14	Krishnamurthy & Co	669	8
15	Tatva Legal	331	8
16	IndusLaw	1,255	7
17	Platinum Partners	1,605	6
18	PDS Legal	65	6
19	Economic Laws Practice (ELP)	145	5
20	Vaish Associates	2,906	4
21	Wadia Ghandy & Co	420	4
22	Phoenix Legal	95	4
23	DSK Legal	15	4

Domestic firms M&A league tables based on value

Rank	House	Value (US$m)	Deal Count
1	Khaitan & Co	18,764	42
2	AZB & Partners	15,372	43
3	Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas	13,141	36
4	J Sagar Associates	8,744	20
5	Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas & Co	5,651	26
6	S&R Associates	3,291	3
7	Vaish Associates	2,906	4
8	Nishith Desai Associates	2,135	12
9	Platinum Partners	1,605	6
10	Trilegal	1,491	27
11	Crawford Bayley & Co.	1,400	1
12	Veritas Legal	1,299	14
13	IndusLaw	1,255	7