Biglaw, Rankings

Translating Talent Into 'Success': Another Look At Law School Pedigree

How does expected talent (as measured by law school credentials) correlate with other indicators of “success” (as measured by profits per partner)?

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How do law firms fare in translating expected talent to actual success? Recently, we published the ATL Top Litigation Firms By Law School Pedigree ranking, a look, focusing on litigation practice, at how longstanding assumptions about attorney credentials are holding up in this new environment.

(This ranking is presented in partnership with our friends at Lake Whillans Litigation Finance.)

Despite the view of some commenters that such a feature could only be of interest to “psychopaths,” our hunch that a legal audience would be interested in a credential-driven look at law firms was more than born out by the resultant traffic. In fact, several firms reached out to us to inquire as to why they had not been included. To reflect this feedback, we have revised the rankings to include a few more firms, most notably Sanford Heisler and Robbins Russell, who come in at Nos. 8 and 9 respectively.

Defining “success” in the context of law firms is obviously a tricky business. For our purposes, we’ll use one of the most widely referenced law firm rankings schemes: the Am Law 100. Am Law looks at a number of metrics but is most notably (notoriously?) focused on profits per partner. (Later on, we’ll look at the more law student-facing Vault rankings.)

So how does expected talent (as measured by law school credentials) correlate with other indicators of “success”? Below is a comparison — for amusement purposes only! — of the interplay between School Pedigree Rank and Am Law PPP Ranking. Keep in mind that this group only includes those firms in the intersection between “Top Litigation Firms” (as defined in our methodology) and the Am Law 100 (i.e., the boutiques are generally missing):

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the firms are clustered in such a way that suggests a significant correlation between the variables of Pedigree and PPP. Among the firms “outperforming” even their lofty Pedigree rankings are powerhouses Quinn Emanuel, Boies Schiller, and Gibson Dunn. On the other hand, Jenner, Williams & Connolly, and Covington show some distance the other way between “talent” and “success,” at least in the narrowest and most commercial sense.

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To learn more about Lake Whillans Litigation Finance, and litigation finance generally, visit us at our website, lakewhillans.com. To ask a specific question, suggest a topic, or simply say hello, drop us a line at inquiry@lakewhillans.com.

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