With law firms and corporates increasingly drawn to the burgeoning African market, Legal Week Intelligence has extended its Client Satisfaction Report to the continent. James Mayer reveals how in-house legal teams in the region rate their external advisers, and assesses the challenges facing international outfits operating there

Ian Isdale, group company secretary and general counsel of leading African food and consumer goods company Tiger Brands and immediate past president of the Corporate Lawyers Association of South Africa, is putting it mildly when he says: "There has been a heightened interest in Africa and in the next five years I don't see that interest waning."

Recent years have seen a host of UK and US law firms – ranging from Norton Rose Fulbright and Linklaters to Hogan Lovells and even Slaughter and May – attempting to come up with ways to penetrate a market where activity levels have remained buoyant, despite economic challenges elsewhere in the world.