It does not take a strategic genius to pick out the key trends from Legal Week’s third annual financial ranking of the US’ largest law firms.

As the table on page six shows, 2004 was another bumper year, with leading practices cranking up double-digit growth in profits and turnover for the second year running. Between them, the 50 largest firms by revenue billed $33bn (£17.5bn), against $28.84bn (£15.3bn) in 2003.