The Global 100 appears to have found its groove. After the turbulence of the financial crisis, which in 2009 caused the world’s 100 highest-grossing law firms to collectively suffer their first-ever fall in aggregate fee income, the group has now settled into a pattern of slow, steady growth. Aside from a slight spike in 2011, when total Global 100 revenue increased 6.8 percent, top-line growth has for the past five years hovered at around 4 percent.
This year is no different, with total Global 100 revenue rising 4.5 percent, to $92.7 billion, a sum just shy of the gross domestic product of Ecuador, the world’s 63rd-richest country, according to World Bank data. Although a far cry from the double-digit gains routinely achieved by firms before the financial crisis, at current growth rates, Global 100 revenues will still top $100 billion within the next two years.
