2017 Regional Law Firm Rankings

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The Top Regional Offices

Rank Score Firm
Boston
179.82Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP and Affiliates
273.17Ropes & Gray LLP
372.63WilmerHale
465.56Proskauer Rose LLP
564.76Goodwin Procter LLP
663.60Cooley LLP
761.97Fish & Richardson P.C.
853.46Foley & Lardner LLP
946.04Nixon Peabody LLP
1044.68Brown Rudnick LLP
Chicago
184.77Kirkland & Ellis LLP
283.03Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP and Affiliates
383.02Latham & Watkins LLP
478.91Sidley Austin LLP
574.09Jones Day
668.70Mayer Brown LLP
766.66Ropes & Gray LLP
862.56McDermott Will & Emery LLP
961.65Baker & McKenzie
1061.47Morgan Lewis & Bockius LLP
1158.15Jenner & Block LLP
1256.58Winston & Strawn LLP
1354.40Foley & Lardner LLP
1452.27Perkins Coie LLP
1549.35Reed Smith LLP
1644.95DLA Piper
1744.24Holland & Knight LLP
1843.41Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP
1942.19McGuireWoods LLP
2042.02Bryan Cave LLP
2141.96Greenberg Traurig, LLP
2239.94Schiff Hardin LLP
2339.85Seyfarth Shaw LLP
2438.65Dentons
2536.17Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP
DC
180.76Kirkland & Ellis LLP
279.05Williams & Connolly LLP
378.16Latham & Watkins LLP
477.48Covington & Burling LLP
575.66Sidley Austin LLP
675.44Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP
775.21Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP
874.22Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP and Affiliates
972.90Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP
1069.31Ropes & Gray LLP
1168.94Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP
1268.80Jones Day
1368.57Arnold & Porter LLP
1468.31Paul Hastings LLP
1565.32WilmerHale
1665.28Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP
1763.14Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP
1863.03O'Melveny & Myers LLP
1963.01Mayer Brown LLP
2062.90Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP
2162.25Morrison & Foerster LLP
2262.14Jenner & Block LLP
2361.84Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP
2461.55Hogan Lovells US LLP
2560.99Winston & Strawn LLP
Dallas
181.28Sidley Austin LLP
280.29Jones Day
373.36Vinson & Elkins LLP
471.48Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP
563.56Baker & McKenzie
663.00Baker Botts LLP
762.95Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP
862.08Fish & Richardson P.C.
954.90Hunton & Williams LLP
1044.13Haynes and Boone, LLP
1140.76Locke Lord LLP
1238.91Thompson & Knight LLP
1338.75Dentons
1433.94Winstead PC
1524.79Strasburger & Price, LLP
Houston
178.12Latham & Watkins LLP
270.74Jones Day
369.40Vinson & Elkins LLP
468.87Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP
563.34Morgan Lewis & Bockius LLP
660.74King & Spalding
759.37Baker Botts LLP
857.88Susman Godfrey L.L.P.
956.71Norton Rose Fulbright
1048.96Bracewell LLP
1148.94Greenberg Traurig, LLP
1248.39Baker & Hostetler LLP
1346.62Haynes and Boone, LLP
1438.62Andrews Kurth LLP
1537.61Winstead PC
Los Angeles
181.34Kirkland & Ellis LLP
277.31Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP
377.15Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP and Affiliates
476.48Latham & Watkins LLP
570.91Sidley Austin LLP
669.48Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP
767.55Morrison & Foerster LLP
869.85Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP
967.38Irell & Manella LLP
1065.90Paul Hastings LLP
1164.13Jones Day
1362.55Proskauer Rose LLP
1262.65O'Melveny & Myers LLP
1461.50Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP
1560.25Arnold & Porter LLP
1756.83Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP
1658.59Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP
1856.58Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP
2055.39Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP
2154.25Morgan Lewis & Bockius LLP
1956.55Winston & Strawn LLP
2249.72Reed Smith LLP
2349.47Alston & Bird LLP
2448.72Steptoe & Johnson LLP
2545.37DLA Piper
New York
180.78Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz
280.20Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP
376.93Kirkland & Ellis LLP
475.96Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP
575.15Covington & Burling LLP
674.53Latham & Watkins LLP
774.17Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP
873.29Sullivan & Cromwell LLP
973.25Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP
1072.00Davis Polk & Wardwell
1171.58Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP and Affiliates
1270.89Debevoise & Plimpton LLP
1370.43Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP
1468.46Sidley Austin LLP
1568.42Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP
1666.24Shearman & Sterling LLP
1765.48Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP
1864.12Jones Day
1963.82Paul Hastings LLP
2063.14WilmerHale
2162.99Proskauer Rose LLP
2262.37Mayer Brown LLP
2362.05Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP
2461.83Morrison & Foerster LLP
2561.66Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP
San Francisco
182.55Covington & Burling LLP
281.78Latham & Watkins LLP
380.87Kirkland & Ellis LLP
475.30Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP
572.04Sidley Austin LLP
664.21Morrison & Foerster LLP
763.10Jones Day
862.74Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP
962.55Ropes & Gray LLP
1062.12Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP
1161.66Paul Hastings LLP
1258.59Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP
1358.28Cooley LLP
1458.20O'Melveny & Myers LLP
1555.23Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati
1654.64Morgan Lewis & Bockius LLP
1754.11Baker & McKenzie
1849.87Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP
1949.22Fenwick & West LLP
2048.08Reed Smith LLP
Silicon Valley
171.40Latham & Watkins LLP
270.30Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP
370.10Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP and Affiliates
463.84Davis Polk & Wardwell
560.99Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP
659.67Jones Day
755.37Morrison & Foerster LLP
852.96Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP
952.63WilmerHale
1052.52Cooley LLP
1146.62Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP
1245.62Morgan Lewis & Bockius LLP
1344.07Fenwick & West LLP
1443.96Goodwin Procter LLP
1541.71Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP




Methodology

Over the summer, we conducted the ATL Law Firm Reputation Survey, asking those of you working in Biglaw to rate your peers and competitors. Included in these rankings were market-specific questions, inquiring about both the reputation of firms in each survey participant's city as well as each firm's desirability as a potential employer. In creating the survey, we limited our city-specific firm choices to offices with at least 50 lawyers. Our office rankings include the following markets: Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Silicon Valley and Washington, DC.

Firms are rated on a scale with 100 possible points:

  • Market-specific reputation survey
    “Strength and quality of practice”: 35%
    “Potential employer”: 15%
  • Leverage
    Ratio of equity partners to all other attorneys: 5%
  • Growth/decay
    % change in headcount since 2010: 5%
  • Percentage of women partners: 5%
  • Partnership prospects
    % of all non-partners who made partner in the most recent promotion cycle: 5%
  • Insider satisfaction
    ATL Insider Survey: 5%
  • Compensation rating: 25%*

Clearly, we are making value judgments in choosing and assigning weight to these metrics. For example, we are rewarding firms for maintaining low leverage, or for offering a relatively better chance for incoming associates to eventually ascend to partnership.

Also, to be sure, law firms are not homogenous in their approaches to partnership tracks or compensation structures or other aspects that we have sought to measure here, but we have done our best to account for these differences and create a formula that allows for meaningful comparisons.

The perfect "ATL score" is 100. Each firm is awarded a maximum number of points based on the weight of each metric (a maximum of 25 points for highest compensation rating, 5 points for highest growth headcount, etc.). The points are awarded on a sliding scale from highest to lowest. (For certain categories, firms were placed into tiers and points were apportioned accordingly.) Those points add up to the total ATL score seen on the rankings table.



* We limited our city-specific firm choices to offices with at least 50 lawyers.
** Compensation rating accounts for the following 4 factors: first-year salary, recent track record for bonuses, profits per partner (as reported to Am Law), and survey data.





Questions about our rankings? Contact us at research@abovethelaw.com.