Let's be clear: in this market, the "best" law firm is the one that will employ you. If you have a job, congratulations, you're number one. But the methods for evaluating the large law firms that are best at the business of practicing law are stuck in the past. The new normal means new challenges for firms. Is bigger always better? More revenue sounds nice, unless the firm is overly reliant on a few rainmakers who can jump ship and leave the rest of the firm scrambling for clients. Surely, the last client who cared about white-shoe status is somewhere trying to find a new ribbon for his typewriter.

With these rankings, Above the Law is trying to capture the strength and relevance of major law firms in today's market. Who are the market leaders? Which firms are still making and retaining their partners? Where do you want to work? Power, post-recession, is about what you are, not what you used to be.

The Power 100 blends objective data points (changes in headcount over time, “homegrown” partners, and number of women partners) with subjective feedback from over 20,000 associates, partners, and other members of the legal community. The result is a more complete picture of each firm, encompassing employee satisfaction, compensation, reputation, desirability as an employer, and data-driven measures of firm growth. The Power 100 is meant to offer a new perspective on some of the most prestigious and wealthy firms by using a new rubric to show how they stack up against the competition.

Rank	Firm	Score
1	Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz	83.39
2	Kirkland & Ellis	81.60
3	Davis Polk & Wardwell	81.36
4	Sullivan & Cromwell LLP	80.85
5	Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP	80.71
6	Cravath, Swaine, & Moore	80.67
7	Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP	79.61
8	Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher	79.54
9	Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton	78.93
10	Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom	78.88
11	Latham & Watkins LLP	78.85
12	Covington & Burling	77.52
13	Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP	77.00
14	Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP	76.99
15	Weil Gotshal & Manges LLP	76.83
16	Munger Tolles & Olson	76.65
17	Debevoise & Plimpton	76.64
18	Sidley Austin LLP	76.62
19	Ropes & Gray LLP	75.69
20	WilmerHale	75.58
21	Jones Day	74.10
22	Cahill Gordon & Reindel	73.32
23	Arnold & Porter	72.93
24	Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati	72.80
25	Cooley LLP	72.77
26	K&L Gates	72.67
27	Paul Hastings LLP	72.61
29	Morrison & Foerster LLP	72.42
30	Perkins Coie	72.42
31	Greenberg Traurig	71.95
32	Shearman & Sterling LLP	71.77
33	Kilpatrick Townsend	71.62
34	Williams and Connolly LLP	71.51
35	Mayer Brown	71.47
36	Jenner & Block	71.42
37	Vinson & Elkins	71.34
38	Fish & Richardson	71.09
38 TIE	McDermott Will & Emery	72.58
39	Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe	71.05
40	Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP	70.87
41	O’Melveny & Myers LLP	70.67
42	Proskauer Rose LLP	70.49
43	Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP	70.40
44	Hogan Lovells	70.31
45	Fenwick & West	70.30
46	Milbank, Tweed, Hadley, & McCloy	70.18
47	Irell & Manella	69.91
48	Alston & Bird LLP	69.37
48 TIE	Goodwin	69.37
50	Reed Smith	69.31
51	Dentons †	69.10
52	Baker Botts	68.95
53	Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo	68.94
54	King & Spalding	68.69
55	DLA Piper	68.50
56	Steptoe & Johnson	68.46
57	Baker & Hostetler LLP	68.11
58	Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP	67.97
59	Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld	67.93
60	White & Case LLP	67.92
61	Nixon Peabody LLP	67.74
62	Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP	67.44
63	Dechert LLP	67.42
64	Troutman Pepper Hamilton Sanders LLP	67.18
65	Pepper Hamilton	67.13
66	Foley & Lardner	67.07
67	Wiley Rein LLP	66.98
68	Haynes and Boone	66.83
69	Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton	66.57
70	Hunton & Williams	66.51
71	Winston & Strawn LLP	66.27
72	Bracewell LLP	66.22
73	Littler Mendelson P.C.	66.06
74	Holland & Knight	66.06
75	Shook Hardy and Bacon	65.98
76	Locke Lord Bissell and Lidell	65.97
77	McGuireWoods LLP	65.71
78	Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP	65.65
79	Davis Wright Tremaine	65.62
80	Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner	65.53
81	Norton Rose Fulbright ††	65.43
82	Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP	65.41
83	Bingham McCutchen LLP	65.07
84	Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP	64.69
85	Squire Patton Boggs †††	64.69
86	Baker & McKenzie	64.37
87	Susman Godfrey	64.32
88	Seyfarth Shaw	64.08
89	Crowell & Moring LLP	64.07
90	Knobbe Martens Olson & Bear LLP	64.06
91	Cozen O’Connor	63.96
92	Dorsey and Whitney	63.89
93	Jackson Walker	63.77
93 TIE	McKenna Long & Aldridge LLP	63.77
95	Sutherland Asbill & Brennan	63.46
96	Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP	62.83
97	Thompson & Knight	62.74
98	Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney	62.51
99	Blank Rome	62.48
100	Ballard Spahr LLP	61.31

† Combines results from legacy firms SNR Denton and Frasner Milner Casgrain
†† Combines results from legacy firms Ogilvy Renault, Macleod Dixon and Fulbright & Jaworski
††† Combines results from legacy firms Patton Boggs and Squire Sanders

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Back in July, we launched the ATL Law Firm Reputation Survey, asking those of you working in Biglaw to rate your peers and competitors. For our purposes, we split “reputation” into two distinct aspects: 1) the reputed strength and quality of a firm’s practice, and 2) the perceived desirability of the firm as a potential employer. (For some, these factors will be functionally equivalent. For others, these are less overlapping considerations.) In addition, the ATL Law Firm Reputation Survey asked respondents to rate firms in their specific market for both practice quality as well as desirability as potential employers. (In creating the survey, we limited our city-specific firm choices to offices with at least 50 lawyers.)

Firms are rated on a scale with 100 possible points:

• 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 2009: 5%
• Percentage of women partners: 5%
• “Homegrown” partners
  Likelihood of incoming associates making equity partner: 5%*
• Insider satisfaction
  ATL Insider Survey: 5%**
• Compensation rating: 25%***

Obviously, 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.

* Survey conducted in partnership with Kinney Recruiting.
** Data for the “homegrown” metric courtesy of Leopard Solutions.
*** 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.