The ATL 2016 Power 100 Law Firm Rankings

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, promotional prospects, 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.

The ATL Power 100 Law Firm Rankings

Rank 2015 Rank Firm Score
1 6 Cravath, Swaine & Moore 81.41
2 14 Boies, Schiller & Flexner 79.84
3 7 Simpson Thacher & Bartlett 78.87
4 11 Latham & Watkins 78.74
5 2 Kirkland & Ellis 78.50
6 10 Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom 78.37
7 5 Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison 78.28
8 4 Sullivan & Cromwell 78.27
9 3 Davis Polk & Wardwell 78.19
10 12 Covington & Burling 77.01
11 8 Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher 76.37
12 9 Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton 76.36
13 13 Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan 75.98
14 1 Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz 75.48
15 18 Sidley Austin 75.28
16 20 Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr 74.73
17 15 Weil, Gotshal & Manges 74.71
18 34 Williams & Connolly 73.16
19 17 Debevoise & Plimpton 71.51
20 21 Jones Day 70.82
21 22 Cahill Gordon & Reindel 70.76
22 32 Shearman & Sterling 70.73
23 24 Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati 69.83
24 19 Ropes & Gray 69.64
25 59 Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld 69.42
26 46 Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy 69.24
27 43 Willkie Farr & Gallagher 68.90
28 41 O'Melveny & Myers 68.89
29 30 Perkins Coie 68.69
30 60 White & Case 68.31
31 25 Cooley 68.22
32 35 Mayer Brown 67.99
33 29 Morrison & Foerster 67.98
34 27 Paul Hastings LLP 67.83
35 28 McDermott Will & Emery 67.74
36 48 Goodwin Procter 67.10
37 23 Arnold & Porter 67.02
38 44 Hogan Lovells 66.89
39 39 Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe 66.25
39 78 Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft 66.25
39 47 Irell & Manella 66.25
40 38 Fish & Richardson 65.89
41 42 Proskauer Rose 65.75
42 16 Munger Tolles & Olson 65.08
43 49 Alston & Bird 65.01
44 40 Morgan, Lewis & Bockius 64.81
45 54 King & Spalding 63.84
46 37 Vinson & Elkins 63.68
47 86 Baker & McKenzie 63.20
48 58 Fried Frank Harris Shriver & Jacobson 63.14
49 26 K&L Gates 62.60
50 62 Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman 62.46
51 56 Steptoe & Johnson LLP 62.14
52 55 DLA Piper 62.06
53 57 Baker & Hostetler 62.01
54 52 Baker Botts 61.60
55 71 Winston & Strawn 61.21
56 31 Greenberg Traurig 60.78
57 81 Norton Rose Fulbright 60.77
58 66 Foley and Lardner 60.62
59 51 Dentons 60.59
60 69 Sheppard Mullin 60.45
61 63 Dechert 60.23
62 50 Reed Smith 60.04
63 85 Squire Patton Boggs 59.91
64 84 Katten Muchin Rosenman 59.27
65 64 Troutman Sanders 58.75
66 68 Haynes and Boone 58.37
67 80 Bryan Cave 58.10
68 45 Fenwick & West 57.54
69 87 Susman Godfrey 57.32
70 33 Kilpatrick Townsend 57.18
71 89 Crowell & Moring 57.17
72 82 Drinker Biddle & Reath 57.07
73 88 Seyfarth Shaw 56.94
74 72 Bracewell & Giuliani 54.86
75 61 Nixon Peabody 54.68
76   Stoel Rives 54.33
77 77 McGuireWoods 54.14
78 65 Pepper Hamilton 54.10
79   Foley Hoag 54.06
80 75 Shook, Hardy & Bacon 53.42
81 36 Jenner & Block 53.31
82 70 Hunton & Williams 53.16
83   Venable 52.91
84 53 Mintz Levin 52.48
85 92 Dorsey & Whitney 52.41
86   Andrews Kurth 52.30
87 79 Davis Wright Tremaine 51.76
88   Schiff Hardin 51.15
89 100 Ballard Spahr 51.04
90 76 Locke Lord LLP 50.49
91 67 Wiley Rein 50.42
92   Duane Morris 50.15
93 90 Knobbe Martens Olson & Bear 50.10
94 99 Blank Rome 49.44
95 74 Holland & Knight 49.41
96   Quarles & Brady 49.35
97 73 Littler Mendelson 49.28
98   Kaye Scholer 49.16
99   Loeb & Loeb 49.02
100   Schulte Roth & Zabel 48.94




Methodology

This past summer, we conducted 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:

  • 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%***

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 "partnership prospects" metric courtesy of NavForward.
*** 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.




 

Download a free copy of Kinney Recruiting's
How to Work with a Recruiter and Find the Perfect Job.


Download the eBook Now

Comments