The ‘Profits-per-Partner’ List
Ben Thomson – Since publishing our ‘Biggest Law Firm List’, we have been asked to publish the ‘profits per partner’ as a measure of law firm’s ‘bigness’. And so, based on the available data, let’s look at the money being made by lawyers on a partnership profits basis.
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Firms bill highly and earn big money so when it comes to asking what top law firm partners make we did some research for the 2021 figures here.
Going back to 2021 figures as reported by the 2022 Am Law 100 rankings, based on financial performance in 2021 the US 100 largest law firms did extremely well showing the following earnings:
- Total revenue: $127.4 billion, up by 14.8 percent.
- Average revenue per lawyer (“RPL”): $1.18 million, up by 12.5 percent.
- Profits per equity partner (“PEP”): $2.66 million, up by 19.4 percent.
Here are the top 30 law firms on a partners-by-profit basis. The top 5 firms in terms of ‘profits per partner’ and rounded are:
Kirkland & Ellis – $7.3m
Davis Polk – $7m
Sullivan & Cromwell – $6.3m
Paul Weiss – $6.1m
Weil Gotshal – $5.1m
Here’s a table displaying the profits per partner for the top 30 law firms in the world based on the Law.com and other ranking data available online:
| Rank | Firm | Profit per Partner |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kirkland & Ellis | $7,388,000 |
| 2 | Latham & Watkins | $5,705,000 |
| 3 | DLA Piper | $2,496,000 |
| 4 | Baker McKenzie (verein) | $1,833,000 |
| 5 | Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom | $5,088,000 |
| 6 | Dentons (verein) | $379,000 |
| 7 | White & Case | $3,509,000 |
| 8 | Sidley Austin | $3,718,000 |
| 9 | Clifford Chance | $2,918,000 |
| 10 | Ropes & Gray | $4,333,000 |
| 11 | Allen & Overy | $2,684,000 |
| 12 | Hogan Lovells | $2,482,000 |
| 13 | Morgan, Lewis & Bockius | $1,831,000 |
| 14 | Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher | $4,440,000 |
| 15 | Linklaters | $2,572,000 |
| 16 | Jones Day | $1,446,000 |
| 17 | Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer | $2,691,000 |
| 18 | Simpson Thacher & Bartlett | $5,980,000 |
| 19 | Norton Rose Fulbright (verein) | $1,054,000 |
| 20 | CMS (EEIG) | $1,065,000 |
| 21 | Greenberg Traurig | $2,276,000 |
| 22 | Cooley | $4,064,000 |
| 23 | Goodwin Procter | $3,690,000 |
| 24 | Davis Polk & Wardwell | $7,010,000 |
| 25 | Weil, Gotshal & Manges | $5,181,000 |
| 26 | Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison | $6,162,000 |
| 27 | Mayer Brown | $2,465,000 |
| 28 | King & Spalding | $4,374,000 |
| 29 | Sullivan & Cromwell | $6,366,000 |
| 30 | McDermott, Will & Emery | $3,051,000 |
Keep in mind that the profits per partner will also see some of the major law boutiques making substantial profits too and many of these specialist law firms are enormously profitable.
Remember that we’re always interested in knowing more about what you’re earning and what the latest developments in big and small firm pay is so let us know at lawfuel@gmail.com any time.
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