The legal industry reads the Am Law 100 rankings every April in a ritualistic manner, with partners refreshing the page, associates sharing screenshots, and law school career offices discreetly updating their talking points. The report that was released this year carried the unique weight of confirming something that people had already sensed but hadn’t seen fully quantified. The wealthy became even wealthier. The distance grew. Additionally, the companies at the top are now functioning in a financial category that the companies at the bottom can see but most likely cannot access.
In 2025, Kirkland & Ellis reported gross revenue of $10.556 billion. It takes a moment to figure out that number. A single law firm made $10.5 billion in a single year, which is almost 20% more than the previous year. Latham & Watkins is also significantly up at $8.3 billion. DLA Piper’s $4.58 billion at No. 3 shows a significant decline after those two. The gap between the top two companies and the rest is a sort of narrative in and of itself, one about concentration and competitive advantage that compound over time in ways that are getting harder for mid-tier companies to close. The total revenue of the Am Law 100 increased from slightly less than $160 billion in 2024 to $178.95 billion in 2025. At 16.3%, net income increased even more quickly. These are not the numbers of a struggling industry.
| Field | Details |
|---|---|
| Publication | 2026 Am Law 100 — published April 2026 by Law.com / The American Lawyer; annual ranking of the 100 largest US law firms by gross revenue |
| No. 1 Firm by Revenue | Kirkland & Ellis — $10.556 billion in gross revenue in 2025, up nearly 20% year-over-year; employs 4,145 lawyers |
| No. 2 Firm by Revenue | Latham & Watkins — $8.300 billion (+18.57%); followed by DLA Piper at $4.583 billion at No. 3 |
| Total Am Law 100 Revenue | $178.95 billion combined gross revenue in 2025 — up from just under $160 billion in 2024; net income rose 16.3% |
| $1 Billion Revenue Threshold | 62 firms cleared $1 billion in gross revenue in 2025, up from 58 firms the prior year; 94 of 100 firms posted revenue gains |
| Revenue Per Lawyer — No. 1 | Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz — $5.085 million per lawyer with just 272 total attorneys; profits per lawyer of $3,525,000 — tops in the industry |
| Biggest Revenue Per Lawyer Jump | Quinn Emanuel — 23.39% RPL increase; Littler Mendelson posted 33.73% RPL jump with 40.89% overall gross revenue growth — standout performer of the year |
| Most Dramatic Top-10 Mover | Simpson Thacher & Bartlett — jumped two spots to No. 10 with $3.553 billion (+22.66% revenue growth) |
| Biggest Decline | Fragomen, Del Rey — steepest gross revenue decline at -5.5%, attributed to forces outside the firm’s control in immigration practice |
| Profits Per Equity Partner (PEP) | Am Law 100-wide PEP rose 14.0% in 2025; 89 firms posted increases in average compensation for all partners, down slightly from 95 the prior year |
Wachtell is another. A firm with 272 attorneys reported $5.085 million in revenue per attorney, a headcount that some regional offices of larger firms could match. according to the attorney. There is no rounding error in the difference between Wachtell and Susman Godfrey, the second-place company on that specific metric, at $2.876 million. It’s a structural statement about Wachtell’s mission, target audience, and total avoidance of the growth-at-scale model that most of its competitors pursue. Wachtell is opposed to hiring more attorneys. It wants the right people to perform the most important tasks and bill appropriately. Numbers that don’t quite line up with the rest of the industry have been produced by that philosophy.
The individual stories become interesting when you watch the movement within the top 10. With a 22.66% revenue growth, Simpson Thacher jumped two spots to enter the top 10 at No. 10. This is the kind of year that makes lateral recruitment calls much easier to accept and partner distributions noticeably more comfortable. Revenue per lawyer at Quinn Emanuel, a firm that has never pretended to be modest, increased by 23.39%. With a nearly 41% increase in gross revenue, Littler Mendelson had perhaps the most impressive individual performance. This figure begs the obvious question of what specifically changed in their business mix to produce that kind of acceleration.
Fragomen, the immigration specialist, stands out for a variety of reasons. With a negative 5.5% decline, it had the steepest decline of any Am Law 100 firm. It’s a clear example of what it means to have a practice area that is directly impacted by external political challenges. Under the current administration, immigration work is not a reliable source of income. That is a reminder that even excellent law firms may find themselves on the wrong side of a policy shift, not an assessment of the firm’s caliber.
Reading all of this makes it difficult to ignore the fact that the structural narrative the legal sector has been telling itself for the past ten years—growing inequality between the top and bottom, the super-rich firms retreating, the middle being squeezed—continues to be supported rather than softened by each year’s data. Whether AI-driven efficiency alters the calculus in ways that redistribute advantage or just quicken concentration is still up for debate. The leading companies have already made investments in it. The companies at the bottom are keeping an eye on the investment to see if it poses a threat or is irrelevant from their position.