Vault 100: 2015 Law Firm Prestige Survey

Career intelligence provider Vault recently released its annual rankings of the most prestigious law firms in the United States.

The Vault 100 lists the most renowned American law firms based on the perceptions of currently practicing lawyers.

Vault compiles its rankings by asking 17,000 associate attorneys to return anonymous surveys.

They score law firms on a scale of 1 to 10 based on how prestigious it is to work for the firm.

Firms are then ranked in order, starting with the highest average prestige score.

There’s not much change on the 2015 list, with the odd firm moving up or down a place.

Litigation specialists Boies and Quinn Emanuel both climbed two places.

Typically, a number of secondary rankings spin out of the main Vault list in the weeks following the publication of the headline survey.

In addition to the main prestige rankings, Vault uses its data to publish additional surveys of the best law firms to work for, best law firms for diversity, and the best law firms broken down by practice area and region.
 

The Vault 100 2015:

 

1. Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz
2. Cravath, Swaine & Moore
3. Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom
4. Sullivan & Cromwell
5. Davis Polk & Wardwell
6. Simpson Thacher & Bartlett
7. Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton
8. Weil, Gotshal & Manges
9. Kirkland & Ellis
10. Latham & Watkins
11. Gibson Dunn & Crutcher
12. Covington & Burling
13. Boies, Schiller & Flexner
14. Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison
15. Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan
16. Debevoise & Plimpton
17. Sidley Austin
18. Williams & Connolly
19. Jones Day
20. White & Case