The Am Law 100 are now live and you can check out the annual industry scoreboard in full over at American Lawyer. But for those of you who just can’t wait to get a sneak peek at the top performers across the major categories in the Am Law rankings, we’ve got your back. We’ll have more detailed discussion over the next few days as we dig in and pick apart these numbers.
But we already know for sure that the elite firms pulled even farther away from the rest of the industry.
Let’s check out some stats.
AI Is Reshaping Legal Practice—But Tools Aren’t The Real Differentiator.
Explore the mindset, cultural shifts, and training strategies that define the AI‑savvy lawyer, revealing why human judgment, standardized competence, and integrated learning—not technology alone—will shape the future of the profession.
Profits Per Equity Partner
The long-accepted gold standard of Biglaw success has taken some hits as a valuable metric in recent years, but we’re still going to salivate like dogs over this list, so why not revel in it. Here are the top 5 firms in PPP (or PPEP as the case may be). The whole list is available here:
1. Wachtell
2. Quinn Emanuel
3. Kirkland
4. Paul Weiss
5. Sullivan & Cromwell
Gross Revenue
AI Built for Litigation. Verified by Design.
Grounded in authoritative content and verified at every step, Protégé is the only legal AI tool that delivers work you can trust—without exception.
Which law firms are raking in the most cash overall? As one might expect, the biggest of the big firms. The globalist of the global firms. The vereinist of the verein firms. All right, that didn’t quite work, but here are the top dogs in revenue. A whopping 31 firms crested $1 billion in revenue this year. The full list is here:
1. Kirkland
2. Latham
3. Baker McKenzie (verein)
4. DLA (verein)
5. Skadden
Revenue Per Lawyer
While profits per partner falls out of vogue as the prime indicator of firm health, people have turned to revenue per lawyer, preferring to judge the strength of a firm based on how much cash they’ve managed to squeeze out of every attorney on the payroll. Full list here:
1. Wachtell
2. Sullivan & Cromwell
3. Quinn Emanuel
4. Kirkland
5. Skadden
Compensation Per Partner
Finally, let’s do a little Lifestyles of the Rich and Rainmaking by checking out compensation per partner. What partners managed to take home the biggest scores this year? Well… obviously Wachtell, but who else. Full list is here:
1. Wachtell
2. Paul Weiss
3. Sullivan & Cromwell
4. Cravath
5. Davis Polk
Check out the complete coverage from American Lawyer including the full stats, as well as some other categories not previewed above, and a bevy of articles providing deeper analysis. And stay tuned to Above the Law for more coverage over the coming days.
The 2018 Am Law 100 [American Lawyer]
Earlier: Am Law 100 News: Elite New York Dominate In Profits And Revenue
Joe Patrice is an editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.