DLA Piper and Pinsents top AIM charts

Clifford Chance's corporate department will hope to make headway following panel appointments to FTSE100 clients such as Cable & Wireless, Reuters and Shell. Slaughters will expect the cream of the corporate work coming out of the first two companies, but Shell is an interesting case in point.

Slaughters advised on the oil giant's restructuring and remains its key UK corporate adviser. But being a global company, Shell needs assistance all over the world and last year named five firms on its international panel: A&O, Baker & McKenzie, Clifford Chance, Denton Wilde Sapte and Simmons & Simmons. Clifford Chance's Geraint Hughes has carefully fostered this relationship and has grabbed instructions on deals in Portugal and on the sale of Shell's liquefied natural gas business.

The need for international firms on these panels has already helped Linklaters and Freshfields climb these tables and Clifford Chance will hope to follow.