There are many different and exciting ways to rank law firms. How prestigious are they? How much money are they making? How much take-home cash do partners earn? How big are they?
Yes, size matters, and because the legal profession is obsessed with every single measurable and quantifiable factor law firms have to offer, there’s obviously a ranking for that.
Today, the National Law Journal unleashed its annual NLJ 500, a ranking of largest law firms in the United States covering the previous calendar year. If you’ve ever wondered about precise law firm headcounts, this is the ranking for you.
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For your counting pleasures, here are the 10 largest law firms in the United States:
- Baker McKenzie: 4,719
- DLA Piper: 3,609
- Norton Rose Fulbright: 3,339
- Hogan Lovells: 2,685
- Jones Day: 2,513
- Latham & Watkins: 2,436
- White & Case: 2,039
- Kirkland & Ellis: 1,997
- Greenberg Traurig: 1,944
- Morgan Lewis & Bockius: 1,943
Head to the National Law Journal if you’re curious about the firms ranked 11-500.
Congratulations go out to Baker McKenzie for employing more lawyers than any other firm. You know you’ve made it big when you’ve got more equity partners (701) than the firm that started the latest salary war has total attorneys (Milbank, 690).
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The NLJ 500: Our 2018 Survey of the Nation’s Largest Law Firms [National Law Journal]
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.