Above the Law's Outside Counsel Rankings: Who You Gonna Call?

For the third year, Above the Law asked in-house counsel what they thought of their outside law firms. Of course, there are a multitude of ways of rating and ranking law firms, from deal tables to “profits-per-partner” to “prestige.” But there is no more crucial issue to firms than what clients—or potential clients—think of them. For Biglaw firms, the clients that truly matter are GCs and legal departments at America’s top companies.

Who do in-house counsel call when they need legal help? Who do they call when their company can’t afford to lose? The Above the Law Outside Counsel Rankings have been generated exclusively from surveys to in-house counsel at top companies. Their opinion is a true measure of law firm “prestige,”—the kind that leads directly to business.

Methodology

In late 2019 and through January of this year, we reached out to corporate counsel and in-house attorneys at thousands of companies, ranging from small and medium-sized private companies to large public corporations. Ultimately, roughly 1,000 in-house lawyers—from nearly 500 companies and over 40 cities—shared with us their evaluations of their companies’ outside law firms. Our survey was direct. We asked counsel two simple questions: 1) “Which law firms does your company engage for legal services?” and 2) “Please indicate the highest level legal work for which your company will engage the particular firm(s).” The “levels” of work were defined along a four-point scale:

  • Cost-efficient, bulk tasks (1)
  • Routine matters (2)
  • High-value, complex matters (3)
  • “Bet-the-company” matters (4)

Because of the “blunt instrument” nature of our question, the resultant ratings are inapt for the purposes of an ordinal ranking. Our first tier and second tiers comprise the 75 firms with the highest mean ratings based on this scale. (Our second tier has been expanded to 50 firms for the 2020 Rankings.) Only firms with a minimum threshold number of ratings—as adjusted for firm size—were eligible for inclusion.

Outside Counsel:
Top Tier Firms

  • Boies Schiller
  • Cooley
  • Covington & Burling
  • Cravath
  • Davis Polk
  • Debevoise
  • Gibson Dunn
  • Jones Day
  • Kirkland & Ellis
  • Latham & Watkins
  • Linklaters
  • O’ Melveny & Myers
  • Paul Weiss
  • Proskauer
  • Quinn Emanuel
  • Ropes & Gray
  • Simpson Thacher
  • Skadden
  • Sullivan & Cromwell
  • Wachtell
  • Weil Gotshal
  • White & Case
  • Williams & Connolly
  • Willkie Farr
  • Wilmer Cutler

Outside Counsel:
Second Tier Firms

  • Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld
  • Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer
  • Baker & Hostetler
  • Baker & McKenzie
  • Baker Botts
  • Barnes & Thornburg
  • Bryan Cave
  • Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft
  • Cahill Gordon & Reindel
  • Clifford Chance
  • Cozen O’Connor
  • Dechert
  • Dentons
  • DLA Piper
  • Duane Morris
  • Epstein Becker & Green
  • Farella Braun + Martel
  • Fenwick & West
  • Fox Rothschild
  • Freshfields
  • Fried Frank
  • Goodwin Procter
  • Greenberg Traurig
  • Hogan Lovells
  • Holland & Knight
  • Jackson Lewis
  • Jenner & Block
  • K&L Gates
  • King & Spalding
  • Littler Mendelson
  • Loeb & Loeb
  • Mayer Brown
  • McDermott Will & Emery
  • Milbank LLP
  • Mintz Levin
  • Morrison & Foerster
  • Munger Tolles & Olson
  • Nixon Peabody
  • Norton Rose Fulbright
  • Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe
  • Paul Hastings
  • Perkins Coie
  • Reed Smith
  • Seyfarth Shaw
  • Shearman & Sterling
  • Sidley Austin
  • Vedder Price P.C.
  • Venable
  • Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati
  • Winston & Strawn

Top Outside Counsel by
Industry

Technology

  • Cooley
  • Cleary Gottlieb
  • Dorsey & Whitney
  • Farella Braun
  • Fenwick & West
  • Goodwin Procter
  • Gunderson Dettmer
  • Kirkland & Ellis
  • Orrick
  • Wilson Sonsini

Energy

  • Baker Botts
  • Bracewell
  • Gibson Dunn
  • Haynes & Boone
  • Jackson Walker
  • Kirkland & Ellis
  • Latham & Watkins
  • Vinson & Elkins
  • Weil, Gotshal & Manges
  • White & Case

Defense

  • Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer
  • Baker & McKenzie
  • Dentons
  • Duane Morris
  • Gibson Dunn & Crutcher
  • Holland & Knight
  • Kirkland & Ellis
  • Jackson Lewis
  • Morrison & Foerster
  • Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman

Health Care / Life Sciences

  • Cooley
  • Gibson Dunn & Crutcher
  • Hogan Lovells
  • Jones Day
  • King & Spalding
  • McDermott Will & Emery
  • Paul Hastings
  • Sidley Austin
  • Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom
  • Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr

Finance

  • Cahill Gordon
  • Cravath
  • Davis Polk
  • Latham & Watkins
  • Milbank
  • Perkins Coie
  • Ropes & Gray
  • Simpson Thacher
  • Sullivan & Cromwell
  • Wachtell

Consumer Products

  • Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath
  • Gibson Dunn & Crutcher
  • Hogan Lovells
  • Jones Day
  • Latham & Watkins
  • McGuireWoods
  • Morgan, Lewis & Bockius
  • Norton Rose Fulbright
  • Proskauer Rose
  • Sidley Austin

Telecommunications

  • Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer
  • Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton
  • DLA Piper
  • Jenner & Block
  • Wiley

Media / Entertainment

  • Davis Polk
  • Davis Wright
  • Gibson Dunn
  • Loeb & Loeb
  • Manatt Phelps
  • Munger Tolles
  • O’Melveny
  • Paul Weiss
  • Pillsbury Winthrop
  • Proskauer

Stay tuned for the release of the Organization Rankings in the coming weeks.

Questions about our rankings?

Contact us at [email protected].