  For \cal{N}=1 SU(N) SYM theories obtained as marginal deformations of the
\cal{N}=4 parent theory we study perturbatively some sectors of the chiral ring
in the weak coupling regime and for finite N. By exploiting the relation
between the definition of chiral ring and the effective superpotential we
develop a procedure which allows us to easily determine protected chiral
operators up to n loops once the superpotential has been computed up to (n-1)
order. In particular, for the Lunin-Maldacena beta-deformed theory we determine
the quantum structure of a large class of operators up to three loops. We
extend our procedure to more general Leigh-Strassler deformations whose chiral
ring is not fully understood yet and determine the weight-two and weight-three
sectors up to two loops. We use our results to infer general properties of the
chiral ring.
