Above the Law's Outside Counsel Rankings: Who You Gonna Call?
For the fourth year, Above the Law asked in-house counsel what they thought of their outside law firms. Of course, there are a multitude of ways of rating and ranking law firms, from deal tables to “profits-per-partner” to “prestige.” But there is no more crucial issue to firms than what clients -- or potential clients -- think of them. For Biglaw firms, the clients that truly matter are GCs and legal departments at America's top companies.
Who do in-house counsel call when they need legal help? Who do they call when their company can't afford to lose? The Above the Law Outside Counsel Rankings have been generated exclusively from surveys to in-house counsel at top companies. Their opinion is a true measure of law firm "prestige," -- the kind that leads directly to business.
Methodology
From February through April of this year, we reached out to corporate counsel and in-house attorneys at thousands of companies, ranging from small and medium-sized private companies to large public corporations. Ultimately, roughly 800 in-house lawyers -- from 440 companies and more than 40 cities -- shared with us their evaluations of their companies’ outside law firms. Our survey was direct. We asked counsel two simple questions: 1.) “Which law firms does your company engage for legal services?” and 2.) “Please indicate the highest level legal work for which your company will engage the particular firm(s).” The “levels” of work were defined along a four-point scale:
- Cost-efficient, bulk tasks (1)
- Routine matters (2)
- High-value, complex matters (3)
- “Bet-the-company” matters (4)
Because of the “blunt instrument” nature of our question, the resultant ratings are inapt for the purposes of an ordinal ranking. Thus, our first tier and second tiers comprise the 75 firms with the highest mean ratings based on this scale. Only firms with a minimum threshold number of ratings -- as adjusted for firm size -- were eligible for inclusion.
Litigation Finance: Onward and Upward
The ATL Outside Counsel Rankings are an innovative look — from the clients' perspective — at Biglaw's most trusted and sought-after firms. Increasingly, those firms and their clients are turning to litigation finance in order to align legal expenses and business objectives.
The annual Lake Whillans/Above the Law litigation finance survey maps a trajectory of ever-increasing awareness and acceptance of the practice of third-party funding. Since we began our survey five years ago, firsthand experience with litigation finance has become increasingly widespread among all categories of attorneys, from law firm partners to in-house counsel. In 2017, about one-third of respondents reported firsthand experience, whereas by 2021 that proportion had grown to two-thirds:
Do you have firsthand experience working with a litigation finance firm?
Source: Lake Whillans 2021 survey of approximately 400 in-house and law firm attorneys
Outside Counsel:
Top Tier Firms
- Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer*
- Cleary Gottlieb*
- Covington & Burling
- Cravath
- Davis Polk
- Debevoise
- Fenwick & West*
- Gibson Dunn
- Jones Day
- Keker Van Nest*
- Kirkland & Ellis
- Latham & Watkins
- Milbank*
- Munger Tolles*
- Orrick*
- Paul Weiss
- Ropes & Gray
- Simpson Thacher
- Skadden
- Sullivan & Cromwell
- Wachtell
- Weil Gotshal
- Williams & Connolly
- Wilmer Cutler
- Wilson Sonsini*
*new to top tier this year
Outside Counsel:
Second Tier Firms
- Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld
- Baker & Hostetler
- Baker & McKenzie
- Baker Botts
- Barnes & Thornburg
- Boies Schiller
- Bryan Cave
- Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft
- Cahill Gordon & Reindel
- Clifford Chance
- Cooley
- Cozen O'Connor
- Davis Wright Tremaine
- Dechert
- DLA Piper
- Duane Morris
- Epstein Becker & Green
- Farella Braun + Martel
- Fox Rothschild
- Freshfields
- Fried Frank
- Goodwin Procter
- Greenberg Traurig
- Gunderson Dettmer
- Hogan Lovells
- Holland & Knight
- Hunton Andrews Kurth
- Jenner & Block
- K&L Gates
- King & Spalding
- Lathrop GPM
- Littler Mendelson
- Loeb & Loeb
- Mayer Brown
- McDermott Will & Emery
- Mintz Levin
- Morgan Lewis
- Morrison & Foerster
- Norton Rose Fulbright
- O'Melveny & Myers
- Perkins Coie
- Proskauer
- Quinn Emanuel
- Reed Smith
- Seyfarth Shaw
- Shearman & Sterling
- Sidley Austin
- White & Case
- Willkie Farr
- Winston & Strawn
Top Outside Counsel by
Industry
*denotes a firm new to the list for 2021
Technology
*denotes a firm new to the list for 2021
- Cooley
- Farella Braun
- Fenwick & West
- Gunderson Dettmer
- Irell & Manella*
- Morrison & Foerster*
- Orrick
- Perkins Coie*
- Weil Gotshal*
- Wilson Sonsini
Energy
*denotes a firm new to the list for 2021
- Baker Botts
- Akin Gump*
- Baker Botts
- Bracewell
- Gibson Dunn
- Haynes & Boone
- Hunton Andrews Kurth*
- Jackson Walker
- Kirkland & Ellis
- Latham & Watkins
- Vinson & Elkins
Defense
*denotes a firm new to the list for 2021
- Akin Gump*
- Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer
- Baker & McKenzie
- Dentons
- DLA Piper*
- Duane Morris
- Fried Frank*
- Gibson Dunn & Crutcher
- Holland & Knight
- Kirkland & Ellis
Health Care / Life Sciences
*denotes a firm new to the list for 2021
- Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer*
- Cooley
- Gibson Dunn & Crutcher
- Hogan Lovells
- McDermott Will & Emery
- Ropes & Gray*
- Sidley Austin
- Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom
- Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr
- Wilson Sonsini*
Finance
*denotes a firm new to the list for 2021
- Cahill Gordon
- Cravath
- Davis Polk
- Kirkland & Ellis*
- Latham & Watkins
- Milbank
- Ropes & Gray
- Simpson Thacher
- Sullivan & Cromwell
- Wachtell
Consumer Products
*denotes a firm new to the list for 2021
- DLA Piper*
- Gibson Dunn & Crutcher
- Hogan Lovells
- Holland & Knight*
- Jones Day
- Latham & Watkins
- McGuireWoods
- Morgan, Lewis & Bockius
- Proskauer Rose
- Winston & Strawn*
Telecommunications
*denotes a firm new to the list for 2021
- Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer
- Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton
- Latham & Watkins*
- Morgan Lewis*
- Wiley
Media/Entertainment
*denotes a firm new to the list for 2021
- Davis Wright
- Gibson Dunn
- Greenberg Traurig*
- Irell & Manella*
- Loeb & Loeb
- Manatt Phelps
- Munger Tolles
- O'Melveny
- Paul Weiss
- Proskauer
Questions about our rankings?
Contact us at research@abovethelaw.com.
