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The Global 100

By ALM Staff | Law Journal Newsletters |
November 02, 2015

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%, top-line growth has for the past five years hovered at around 4%.

This year is no different, with total Global 100 revenue rising 4.5% 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.

And these aren't figures skewed by consolidation or the introduction of some new form of megafirm: Eighty-four of the top 100 firms increased their revenue last year. Nor was the growth simply a reflection of firms adding more lawyers. In fact, the total number of attorneys employed by Global 100 firms saw a rare contraction last year, dipping 0.8% to just below 112,000 ' the first drop in overall group head count since 2010 and only the fourth since The American Lawyer (an ALM affiliate of this newsletter) began compiling global financials in 1998. In total, 42 Global 100 firms reduced their head count last year.

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