Global law firms have strengthened their brands in Canada but still fall short of large Canadian firms such as Blake, Cassels & Graydon, which was named the country's top legal brand for the third consecutive year in a recent study by Acritas Research Ltd.

Acritas, a legal marketing consultancy, released the Canada Law Firm Brand Index 2018 on Monday, showing Blakes has the strongest law firm brand in the country, followed by McCarthy Tetrault in second place and Stikeman Elliott in third.

Acritas bases the index on a survey of 250 senior in-house counsel, either at Canadian organizations with revenue of at least $50 million or at multinational companies with legal needs in Canada. The survey asks in-house lawyers about the most well-known and favorably viewed law firms, how likely they are to choose certain firms for top-level litigation and transactional matters, and overall use.

Despite the dominance of Canadian firms, global firms appeared to be making inroads in the market. Among the top 10 are two global legal giants—Norton Rose Fulbright, which ranked fourth, and Dentons, which ranked eighth. The other firms in the top 10 all had Canadian roots: Borden Ladner Gervais, ranked fifth; Torys, ranked sixth; Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt, ranked seventh; Fasken Martineau DuMoulin, ranked ninth; and Gowling WLG, ranked 10th.

Acritas took note of the growing presence of international law firms on the Canadian brand index, saying in a statement that the results in 2018 were shaped, in part, by a continued push toward globalization. Compared with when Acritas started the Canadian index several years ago, international firms now account for a greater share of brand equity in Canada, the company said.

“In 2012, Canadian firms together held 85 percent of total brand equity available in the market and global firms just 3 percent,” Acritas said. “Now the Canadian firm share has dropped to 69 percent in this year's index while global firm share has increased eight-fold to 25 percent.”

Acritas vice president Lizzy Duffy added that the results indicate an expanding desire among in-house counsel to seek outside lawyers with a strong business sense.

“Three major market forces that are shaping the way clients work with law firms are reflected in our research findings. These are globalization, a continued drive for value and a shift to lawyers who bring a business perspective,” Duffy said. “In Canada, being practical and pragmatic is the most differentiating quality of exceptional lawyers from the client's perspective and business understanding is an area that clients think outside counsel need to improve.”

Blakes welcomed its first-place ranking in a statement on Monday.

“We're very pleased with the results—particularly our number one rankings for inbound work, top-level litigation and M&A,” said Rob Granatstein, the firm's managing partner. “Our goal has always been to deliver exceptional client service and value to our clients, and the Acritas results suggest that we are enjoying meaningful success in that regard.”

In addition to the Canadian brand index, Acritas completes similar analyses for legal markets in the United States—where Jones Day has the strongest law firm brand—and internationally, where Baker McKenzie took the top spot in the most recent survey.

Acritas also compiles a ranking for alternative legal service providers. In Canada, the top spot on the 2018 alternative legal provider brand index was Axiom, followed by Thomson Reuters and then Deloitte Legal.

In the inaugural U.S. version of the alternative legal services index released in February, Thomson Reuters took top billing. Acritas also reported at the time that U.S. multinationals increasingly turn to the big four accounting firms—Deloitte, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Ernst & Young and KPMG—for alternative legal services in non-U.S. jurisdictions and use them domestically for work such as taxes.