It’s taken me a while to digest the results of the American Lawyer’s annual Global 100 survey, which was released a week or so ago, but there’s some interesting stuff in there as usual.
The main news at the top is that DLA Piper has eclipsed Baker & McKenzie for the first time to become the world’s highest-grossing firm.
There’s barely a cigarette paper between them, though, with DLA’s gross revenue of $2.44 billion just ahead of Baker at $2.42 billion.
Journalist Richard Lloyd looks at the winners and losers post-Lehman and found that UK firms were hit harder by the recession than US and Australian firms.
Lloyd says:
“Of the 10 highest-grossing firms in this year’s Global 100, four are British—Clifford Chance, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Linklaters, and Allen & Overy—but in the five years since the collapse of Lehman Brothers, all have lost ground to their US rivals.”
Some other aspects of the survey and accompanying analysis:
- Gross revenue for the world’s 100 largest law firms grew by $3 billion last year, hitting $85 billion. Read more
- Profits per partner among Global 100 firms averaged $1.5 million in 2012. Read more
- The Global 100 firms added 4,000 lawyers to their ranks in 2012. Read more
- Revenue per lawyer among the highest-grossing Global 100 firms remained flat in 2012. Read more
- Nearly a quarter of the firm’s on this year’s Global 100 are headquartered outside the US. Read more
(Pictured: Sheffield. DLA has come a long way from its roots in the north of England. Photo credit: The Palmours)
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