The legal industry is fixated on numbers—law firm revenue, profits per equity partner, revenue per lawyer, associate pay, rankings, and more. But numbers by themselves have little meaning. There’s a story behind them. And it may not be what you think.
M&A league tables, for example, purport to show winners and losers in various markets around the world. Last week we saw the London Stock Exchange Group’s rankings from the first six months of 2024, showing that Skadden, Arps, Slate Meagher & Flom was the top legal adviser in M&A as measured by deal value, globally and in Europe. In Asia, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett led the rankings for deal value in the first half, while in Latin America, Big Law was shut out of the top spots by Brazilian firms, led by by Pinheiro Neto Advogados. In the U.K., meanwhile, it was Linklaters that topped the rankings.
