The Top 100 A To Z Law Firms In America!

A new ranking of the legal industry that demands to be shared far and wide.

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For years, the NLJ 500 (and before that, the NLJ 250) was the only game in town when it came to ranking the top law firms. Well, the Am Law 100 (and 200!) existed too, but the NLJ 500 was the only ranking that would tell you exactly how many lawyers the firm employed!

But as we explained yesterday, the National Law Journal has some competition!!! The Law360 400 (Law760?) ranks the largest U.S.-based law firms based on… exactly how many lawyers the firm employs.

With not one but two rankings based exclusively on counting, we at Above the Law felt the public demand for rankings still has room for more superfluous saturation. So without further ado, we present our latest ranking, the first annual Top 100 A to Z Law Firms:

  1. Akerman
  2. Akin Gump
  3. Alston & Bird
  4. Arnold & Porter
  5. Baker & Hostetler
  6. Baker Botts
  7. Baker McKenzie
  8. Ballard Spahr
  9. Barnes & Thornburg
  10. Blank Rome
  11. Bryan Cave
  12. Cadwalader
  13. Cahill
  14. Cleary Gottlieb
  15. Cooley
  16. Covington
  17. Cozen O’Connor
  18. Cravath
  19. Crowell & Moring
  20. Davis Polk
  21. Davis Wright
  22. Debevoise
  23. Dechert
  24. DLA Piper
  25. Dorsey
  26. Duane Morris
  27. Faegre Drinker
  28. Fenwick
  29. Fish
  30. Foley & Lardner
  31. Fox Rothschild
  32. Fragomen
  33. Fried Frank
  34. Gibson Dunn
  35. Goodwin Procter
  36. Gordon Rees
  37. Greenberg Traurig
  38. Haynes and Boone
  39. Hogan Lovells
  40. Holland & Knight
  41. Hunton Andrews
  42. Husch Blackwell
  43. Jackson Lewis
  44. Jenner & Block
  45. Jones Day
  46. K&L Gates
  47. Katten
  48. Kilpatrick Townsend
  49. King & Spalding
  50. Kirkland
  51. Kramer Levin
  52. Latham
  53. Lewis Brisbois
  54. Littler
  55. Locke Lord
  56. Loeb & Loeb
  57. Mayer Brown
  58. McDermott
  59. McGuireWoods
  60. Milbank
  61. Mintz Levin
  62. Morgan Lewis
  63. Morrison & Foerster
  64. Nelson Mullins
  65. Nixon Peabody
  66. Norton Rose
  67. O’Melveny
  68. Ogletree Deakins
  69. Orrick
  70. Paul Hastings
  71. Paul Weiss
  72. Perkins Coie
  73. Pillsbury
  74. Polsinelli
  75. Proskauer
  76. Quinn Emanuel
  77. Reed Smith
  78. Ropes & Gray
  79. Schulte Roth
  80. Seyfarth
  81. Shearman & Sterling
  82. Sheppard Mullin
  83. Sidley
  84. Simpson Thacher
  85. Skadden
  86. Squire Patton
  87. Steptoe
  88. Sullivan & Cromwell
  89. Taft Stettinius
  90. Troutman Pepper
  91. Venable
  92. Vinson & Elkins
  93. Wachtell
  94. Weil
  95. White & Case
  96. Willkie
  97. Wilmer
  98. Wilson Sonsini
  99. Winston & Strawn
  100. Womble Bond

Kudos to Thompson & Knight for rocketing up this list by a whopping 50 slots this year!

Now you might think our methodology merely involved taking the Am Law 100 and alphabetizing them, but you’d be wrong — we also put in the numbers.

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In all seriousness, the NLJ 500 is a stupid ranking. And we’ve said so for years. An ultimately vapid exercise in rankings clickbait using the most superficial sorting mechanism available. Firm size does “matter” but only to the extent you feed that into a function to figure out revenue per lawyer. It’s like measuring a baseball player on total plate appearances without bothering to ask what happened next. On its own the ranking is just the easiest possible way to throw together a ranking. To see Law360 also in the ranking game and opt for the another “simple counting” approach is downright frustrating.

Rankings are hard work, but there’s a lot you can show the industry about itself applying a clever philosophy to a ranking. And then there’s also a lot you can show by applying a simplistic philosophy to a ranking and calling it a day.

Earlier: Dueling Rankings Of The Biggest Biglaw Firms In The Country (2022)
The 500 Largest Law Firms


HeadshotJoe Patrice is a senior 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. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

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