Chambers & Partners published the 2027 edition of its Latin America guide, the directory that for nearly two decades has ranked the region’s leading firms and lawyers based on interviews with clients, market counterparts, and its own research teams. To understand what really changed in the Peruvian market from one year to the next, we compared the Band 1 ranking for each of the 23 practice areas that Chambers evaluates in the country against the Band 1 ranking recorded in the 2026 edition. The conclusion is clear: the core of the Peruvian Band 1 barely moves, and when it does, it is almost always due to corporate integration rather than organic loss of ground.

RODRIGO, without changes and without rival in breadth

Rodrigo, Elías & Medrano Abogados (RODRIGO) maintains the exact same position it held a year ago: Band 1 in sixteen of the 23 areas evaluated – Banking and Finance, Corporate/M&A, Dispute Resolution (Litigation, Arbitration, and White Collar Crime), Energy and Natural Resources (Mining, Oil and Gas, and Power), Environment, Intellectual Property, Labor, Life Sciences, Projects, Public Law, Tax, and TMT. No other Peruvian firm comes close to this breadth, and the fact that the list has not changed at all from one edition to the next confirms that its leadership does not depend on a particularly good year, but rather on a structural position in the market.

Pérez-Llorca: five inherited positions and one earned

The most visible change of the year is not, strictly speaking, a competitive upgrade but a corporate transaction. Miranda & Amado—a Band 1 firm in 2026 in Banking and Finance, Capital Markets, Corporate/M&A, Dispute Resolution: Arbitration, and Real Estate—merged with Pérez-Llorca, and those five Band 1 positions were transferred intact to the resulting firm. Pérez-Llorca’s only genuine upgrade this year is in Competition/Antitrust, where Miranda & Amado was not ranked in Band 1 last year but where the merged firm now is, along with Bullard Falla Ezcurra+, Díez Canseco Abogados, and Payet, Rey, Cauvi, Pérez Abogados. In other words, of the six Band 1 practices that Pérez-Llorca currently boasts in Peru, five represent institutional continuity and only one is net growth.

Iván Delgado, international managing partner of Pérez-Llorca, described the firm’s results in the region as a reflection of “the trust that our clients place in our teams every day and the collective effort of all the professionals at the firm,” when presenting the firm’s results at Chambers Latin America 2027.

The two movements that are truly organic

Aside from the Pérez-Llorca effect, only two band changes nationwide are not due to a merger: one upward and one downward. In Life Sciences, Fernández-Dávila Abogados enters Band 1 this year—last year RODRIGO was the only firm in Band 1 in that practice—making it the first firm to challenge RODRIGO in an area where no one else was competing. Conversely, Hernández & Cía. loses its Band 1 position in Mining: in 2026 it shared Band 1 with RODRIGO in this practice, but in 2027 it drops to Band 2, leaving RODRIGO as the sole firm in Band 1, a striking development given that it is one of the most established mining practices in the Peruvian market.

The rest of the map – Restructuring (CMS Grau, Rebaza, Alcázar & De Las Casas), Consumer Law (Payet, Stucchi Abogados), Dispute Resolution: Litigation and White Collar Crime, Oil and Gas, Energy, Environment, Insurance (Kennedys alone), Intellectual Property, International Trade/WTO, Labor, Projects, Public Law, TMT (RODRIGO alone) and Taxes – remains exactly the same as a year ago, firm by firm.

What does this mean for law firms and legal departments?

For general counsel seeking legal advice in Peru, the implications are twofold. First, the near-total stability of Band 1 suggests that, barring corporate moves like Pérez-Llorca’s, the Peruvian market for top-tier legal services is mature: the most complex mandates remain concentrated in the same small group of firms, year after year. Second, the two organizational changes—Fernández-Dávila’s entry into Life Sciences and Hernández & Cía.’s exit from Mining—are specific but relevant signals for those hiring in these particular areas: in Life Sciences, RODRIGO is no longer the only top-tier option; in Mining, Chambers’ message is that RODRIGO has widened its lead over the rest of the market.

The 2027 edition of Chambers Latin America ultimately paints a picture of continuity rather than disruption: a Peruvian Band 1 that changes little and, when it does, it is usually because one firm absorbs another, not because the market rewards or punishes performance from one year to the next.

By Heidi Maldonado