The 2026 Lawdragon 500 Leading Global Litigators

We’re honored to introduce The 2026 Lawdragon 500 Leading Global Litigators.

This is our 5^th edition of this guide, which has witnessed the ascendance of global disputes as a more civilized battlefield.

We established this guide anchored in the rarefied international arbitration practice whose advocates parse jurisdictions and legal frameworks for matters concerning sovereigns, construction, energy and more. As our world has compressed, business and many activities touch global interests. As a result, many of the most difficult, substantial and hard-fought disputes take place in courts, arbitral settings and agencies worldwide. And even those that remain within one country or another feature parties whose interests span the globe.

The Global Litigators featured here dazzle with their fluency in law, language and global business alongside their commitment to the rule of law as a framework for addressing differences.

Ace Anan Ankomah is the senior partner of Bentsi-Enchill Letsa & Ankomah. Based in Acra, Ghana, he heads the Disputes practice and oversees all contentious matters, including trials and international and domestic arbitrations. He was the lead attorney for NML Capital in the case against Argentina that led to the attachment of an Argentine war vessel, proceedings before the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) and the Supreme Court in Ghana. The case ultimately settled for more than $2.4B. In arbitration, he has represented clients including Volta Aluminium Company/Kaiser, Western Telesystems, Deloitte, Fortiz and Balkan Energy.

Monica Carss-Frisk is a King’s Counsel at Blackstone Chambers, of which she served as co-head from 2012-2022. She specializes in public and regulatory law, civil liberties and human rights, and EU and competition law, among others. She has represented students of the University of Sussex suing to protect academic freedom and represented the Director of Immigration in the Hong Kong Court of Appeal in a case involving the exclusion of same sex couples from a policy of granting dependent visas to the spouses of employment visa holders. She also represented the claimants challenging a decision by the London Metal Exchange to cancel hundreds of millions of dollars in trades.

David Pinsky is a partner in Covington’s international arbitration and litigation practices. Based in New York, he recently won a $5B award for Naftogaz, Ukraine’s state-owned oil and gas company, in an investment arbitration against Russia, in response to Russia’s expropriation of Naftogaz’s assets when it annexed the Crimean Peninsula in 2014. He has also represented Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in an investment dispute against Russia. Before joining Covington in 2005, he lived in Moscow as a U.S. State Department-sponsored fellow studying the challenges of a Russian free press. He carries through this focus in his pro bono practice, representing journalists and other media professionals who seek asylum in the United States. An émigré himself, Pinsky has won asylum and other forms of immigration relief for clients from Russia, Uzbekistan, Iran and Afghanistan, among other countries.

We selected the lawyers included through a robust nomination process. We also conduct independent research and vetting through clients and peers. Those denoted with an asterisk are members of our esteemed Hall of Fame. 

Thank you to Androvett Legal Media & Marketing for their ongoing support of this guide.