The legal industry has been preparing for years for an uptick in restructuring work. The coronavirus pandemic has quickly turned all that anticipation into reality—and enormous revenue.

Recent prefiling fee statements in some of the spring’s biggest Chapter 11 bankruptcies show that some Am Law 100 firms stand to gain tens of millions of dollars each for their work with Neiman Marcus, J. Crew and other retail restructurings as hourly billing rates rise at the associate, counsel and partner ranks.