This year marks the 10th year that we’ve ranked firms by our Value per Lawyer (VPL) metric—and the 10th consecutive year that Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz has led the rankings.
A firm’s VPL is its compensation–all partners divided by its lawyer count. The metric is intended to calculate how much, on average, each of a firm’s lawyers contributes to total partner compensation. We express it two ways: as a dollar amount and as the number of lawyers needed to generate $10 million in partner compensation. At Wachtell, for instance, each lawyer contributes an average of $1.5 million to partner compensation, and it takes an average of seven lawyers to generate $10 million. For more details, see “ A Guide to Our Methodology.”
* Vereins differ structurally from other Am Law 100 firms, especially in regard to profit sharing.
1Fiscal year ends on March 31. Results are projected in order to meet The Am Law 100's publication deadline.
2Fiscal year ends on March 31. Results are projected in order to meet The Am Law 100's publication deadline.
3Fulbright & Jaworski joined with Norton Rose in June of 2013 to form the Norton Rose Fulbright verein, so there is no year-over-year comparison.
4SNR Denton joined with Fraser Milner Casgrain and Salans in March 2013 to form the Dentons verein, so there is no year-over-year comparison.
