Clyde & Co is making its second run in three years for the top prize in the 2019 Transatlantic Legal Awards, jointly hosted by Legal Week and its U.S. sister title The American Lawyer.

Against it for Transatlantic Law Firm of the Year are Cooley, Davis Polk & Wardwell, Milbank, Paul Hastings, and Shearman & Sterling and last year's winners Kirkland & Ellis.

Clyde scooped the award in 2017 after a series of acquisitions and lateral hires in the U.S that saw it develop one of the top specialist insurance practices in the region.

Last year, the firm increased the size of its U.S. partnership by a third with big team hires from the now defunct firm Sedgwick and U.S. insurance firm Hinshaw & Culbertson.

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer is the only Magic Circle firm that has made any shortlist in this year's awards. It is up for M&A Team of the Year in the Mega-Deals category, and Private Equity Team of the Year.

The firm jumped nine places in this year's U.K. M&A league table for the first quarter of 2019, despite a slow start to the year. It was pipped to the post by Kirkland, who took top place.

Dispute Resolution Team of the Year is a battle between Cooley, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom and Sullivan & Cromwell .

Skadden has picked up the most nominations in this year's categories for the second year running. The firm is nominated in six, and individual partners in three. Its global regulatory head David Rievman is up against White & Case private equity co-head Ian Bagshaw and Proskauer Rose London head Mary Kuusisto for Transatlantic Law Firm Leader of the Year.

Entrants for this year's awards were asked to describe a single deal, dispute or matter that involved significant lawyering from both the U.K. and U.S. Firms could submit matters where they worked together with another firm, in which case a joint award would be considered.

Entries are now closed. The awards with take place at a gala evening to celebrate achievement with the top legal players in the U.K. and U.S. in London's Mayfair on June 13.