The Global Arbitration Review’s much anticipated GAR 100—and the even more elite, GAR 30—has ranked Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr’s International Arbitration Group among the top five practices in the world. This is the fifth edition of GAR’s annual rankings of the world’s most active international arbitration practices, with the firm having been listed among the top firms since its inception.

In the GAR 30 editorial, the firm's International Arbitration Group is credited with being “somewhere you can go when you need a miracle pulled out of the hat.” The group is said to be a team with “cosmopolitan composition, with numerous lawyers from civil law jurisdictions and a range of mother-tongues—WilmerHale was one of the first groups to have a civil-law trained partner resident in London full-time.”

The firm has been involved in more than 600 proceedings in recent years. It has successfully represented clients in four of the largest institutional arbitrations and several of the most significant ad hoc arbitrations to arise in the past decade, and also pride itself on consistently achieving its client’s objectives in all cases, through efficient staffing and the use of in-house know-how and precedents. GAR also recently selected Gary Born, chair of the firm’s International Arbitration group, as “Advocate of the Year” in 2011.

Unlike other arbitration law firm rankings, the GAR 30 is based primarily on the number of merits hearings in which each firm has participated within the past two years—among other reasons, because such figures are thought to be less subject to inflation or manipulation. The full GAR 30 methodology, commentary and the GAR 100 survey can be accessed here.