On Tuesday 8 May, over 400 professionals gathered at the Teatro Vetra in Milan for the 3rd edition of the TopLegal Industry Awards, an event created to promote the best international law and tax firms. Interest in the award, which has seen the number of actors involved increase year after year, resulted in more than 80 national and international self-nomination and over 450 applications from individual professionals, from which the 40 best names were selected. To evaluate the finalists’ work, a meeting was held by an expert technical committee: 56 senior figures from the most important Italian companies form the committee, including the Director of Legal and Corporate Affairs at Cattolica Assicurazioni, Stefano Semolini. 

Starting last March, the TopLegal editorial staff invited the jurors to a series of round tables dedicated to the 14 industries corresponding to the competition categories: Insurance Companies and Banks, Crisis and Restructuring, Energy, Food & Drink, Infrastructure and Transport, Investment Funds, Life Sciences, Luxury & Fashion, PMI, Real Estate, Sport, TMT, Wealth Management and Notaries. Over the course of each meeting, the Committee's work not only allowed for the most deserving studies in the running to be selected – it also made an essential contribution to outlining the profile of a new approach to the profession and to legal services, and tracing the key features characteristic of each of these industries.