Entries for the Life Sciences Awards EMEA 2026 will open for entries once again on October 23, 2025. The awards seek to recognise the most outstanding law firms and lawyers specialised in the life sciences industry across Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
The annual awards ceremony for the 2025 awards took place in June 2025 at The Waldorf Hilton, London. The event brings together leading individuals from the industry to celebrate the most impressive achievements and breakthoughs of the previous calendar year, as well as the firms, teams and individuals who are setting the standard.
The Life Sciences Award’s distinctive structure is designed to showcase firms that specialise and excel in life sciences work, with categories that cover the sector and the range of legal disciplines that service it.
The most recent winners for the 2025 can be seen here.
We award law firms and lawyers working in life sciences and publish the shortlists and winners on our websites and social media. We will be rewarding legal work in the life sciences that has taken place between January 1 to December 31 2025.
Projected dates - subject to confirmation
• LAUNCH – October 23, 2025
• ENTRY DEADLINE – December 5, 2025
• RESEARCH INTERVIEWS – January - February
• AWARDS CEREMONY – June
This year we have simplified our submission process into a single word document submission form which should be used for all your work in a jurisdiction. This document is split into 2 sections; Section 1 which deals with lawyer nominations and Section 2 which focuses on the cases/deals you wish to submit.
In Section 1 please enter all the leading lawyers and rising stars you would like to be considered for awards. These nominees should have worked on cases/deals included in Section 2.
In Section 2 please submit all your life sciences cases/deals, choosing what practice area they belong to using the drop down menu. We recommend you include no more than 4 cases per practice area. You may also include any client referee contact details in the relevant rows.
To take part in our research simply:
1. Register on our Entry Portal
2. Download the word document Submission Form
3. Complete one form per jurisdiction; client referee details should be included in the client contact rows of section 2 of the form. There is no seperate referee submission.
4. Submit the entry forms via the entry portal - you must submit via the portal, we cannot accept entries by email
PLEASE NOTE:
When submitting please choose the “Life Cycle” practice area – this is a generic name for all practice areas. Remember there is only form per firm per jurisdiction.
Please ignore the referee upload section on the entry portal as this is not relevant for Life Sciences EMEA as we only accept referees who were clients in the deals/cases you submit for the awards and their details should be listed in the client details rows of section 2 of the submission form. Specific client referees will be contacted ONLY if we need clarifications or more details about cases/deals, we will not mass contact clients and most clients will not be contacted.
We cannot accept submissions via email.
If you have any problems, please contact - accreditation@legalbenchmarkinggroup.com
The EMEA Awards are based primarily on Deal and Case evidence.
We ask firms to provide recent deal and case highlights. The awards are primarily based on the role that firms and individuals played on the most impactful deals and cases of the year. Firms should provide their most complex and interesting matters in the research forms and explain clearly why these pieces of work are important to the industry, why they are innovative and how they can influence market practice, and what challenges they had to overcome to get the deals/cases to a successful resolution.
We will also speak corporate and in-house contacts to get their opinions on key pieces of work. To this end, within the entry forms we have asked firms to provide referees to the most important deals, cases and projects.
Throughout the research, we will also engage with lawyers throughout EMEA in life sciences legal field to get their opinions on notable deals and cases, and to understand the highlights and trends in the life sciences industry during the year in review.
In covering EMEA, we focus on the work being completed by firms, individuals, and in-house teams across different practice areas and we shortlist them within focused categories:
Practice area awards – These awards look to recognise the accomplishments of firms in various practice areas, looking at the cases and/or transactions completed from all lawyers in the firm that have worked on behalf of the life sciences industry in the previous calendar year.
Our primary practice areas are:
Lawyer of the Year awards – These awards recognise the accomplishments of leading lawyers in both their key professional accomplishments in key recent legal work from the previous calendar year; but also consider any thought leadership examples that demonstrate the nominee’s professional thought leadership and advocacy in specific areas. The Lawyer of the Year awards are open exclusively to firm partners.
Rising stars awards – These awards look to recognise the accomplishments of up coming leading lawyers for their work in more open practice area categories that had been completed in the previous calendar year. A rising star is a senior associate or of counsel-level lawyer. Suitable candidates must have under 15 years of professional experience, be under 40 years old and be taking on duties that would usually be expected from partner level lawyers.
In-house awards – These awards look to recognise the accomplishments of inhouse legal teams and General counsels that operate on behalf of companies, that make up the life sciences industry, from work they completed in the previous calendar year.
Jurisdiction awards – These awards look to recognise the accomplishments of firms for their accomplishments across the scope of the life sciences legal practices within the jurisdictions that they are based, from work completed in the previous calendar year.
Impact case and deal awards – These awards look to recognise those firms and inhouse teams that have been involved in the more impactful case decisions and/or transactions within the life sciences industry from the previous calendar year.
Q1: Can I provide the same information that I provided to another publication?
A: Yes. So long as it relates to your life sciences practice in a specific jurisdiction.
Q2: How much influence do we have over the outcome?
A: Firms are encouraged to tell their story via our research form and through interviews. We then measure the firm’s input against the feedback we receive via studying the market. If our studies are in harmony with the firm’s assertions, we weight them equally. If there is an extreme disparity between the firm’s views and a pronounced percentage of the market, we will provide greater weight to the market consensus.
Q3: If I don’t support the project financially, can I still get shortlisted?
A: Firms cannot pay to receive an award and will only be shortlisted based on the merit of their work and achievements, supported by client feedback. It is free to participate in the awards and judging is independent. We cannot guarantee awards or shortlist nominations; the awards are open to all participants and are highly competitive.
Q4: When/how do you contact clients?
A: Our research team will contact client referees (provided to us in the client contact rows of section 2 of the submission form) via personal email. The only client referees accepted for the LS EMEA Awards are those that worked on the cases/deals submitted for the awards. Any feedback that clients provide will be handled sensitively, for awards research purposes only and strictly on a non-attributable basis. Referees may be contacted to provide testimonials, clarification and validation for the nominated deal/cases but we will only contact a small number of specific referees and there will be no mass emails of client referees.
You do not need to submit client contact details but not doing so may lessen your chance of being shortlisted or winning an award as it may effect our ability to corroborate a case/deal.
Q5: We are a small boutique firm – what chance do we stand against the big brand name firms?
A: The Life Sciences Awards EMEA focuses on a wide number of practice areas, smaller firms stand a very good chance of being awarded and in some cases. The awards rest on the merit of the work and achievements within the industry, and not on the size of the organisation.
Q6: If I don’t support the project financially, can I still get shortlisted?
A: Firms cannot pay to receive an award and will only be shortlisted based on the merit of their work and achievements, supported by client feedback. It is free to participate in the awards and judging is independent.
