‘Your firm is HUGE!’
Ever since the recession hit, law schools have enrolled and graduated fewer and fewer students, and the legal profession as a whole took a major hit, having lost about 500,000 to 600,000 jobs that may never return. But despite the layoffs en masse that were a toll of the recession, the biggest of Biglaw firms are still employing thousands and thousands of attorneys — and they’ve been quickly growing in size.
But which U.S. Biglaw firm is the biggest of them all? Law 360 (sub. req.) can help us answer that question. Last night, the website released its master list of the top 400 law firms in the U.S. by headcount, and revealed that Jones Day, President Donald Trump’s go-to law firm, is no longer the largest firm in the country. Not only did Jones Day lose 33 spots in Above the Law’s 2018 Power 100 rankings, but the firm was bounced down to fourth place in the latest Law360 400 rankings — SAD!
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The firm that now resides in the No. 1 spot is Kirkland & Ellis, which expanded its attorney headcount in America by about 13 percent in 2017. Kirkland is now the largest law firm to ever take the top spot in the Law360 400 ranking.
Below, you’ll find a list of the Top 10 largest law firms in the country by headcount:
1. Kirkland & Ellis: 1,854 U.S. attorneys
2. Latham & Watkins: 1,744 U.S. attorneys
3. Greenberg Traurig: 1,725 U.S. attorneys
4. Jones Day: 1,701 U.S. attorneys
5. Sidley Austin: 1,657 U.S. attorneys
6. Morgan Lewis: 1,652 U.S. attorneys
7. Skadden: 1,475 U.S. attorneys
8. DLA Piper: 1,427 U.S. attorneys
9. Lewis Brisbois: 1,201 U.S. attorneys
10. Holland & Knight: 1,180 U.S. attorneys
Click here to see the full list of the 400 largest law firms in the country.
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To the top 10, congratulations on keeping your Biglaw firms bigger than all the rest! For every other firm, keep growing and someday you’ll be a Biglaw behemoth too!
Law360 Reveals 400 Largest US Firms [Law360 (sub. req.)]
Staci Zaretsky has been an editor at Above the Law since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.