On The Merits

A new study from Chambers and Partners reveals that the most elite, fastest-growing law firms, such as Kirkland & Ellis and Latham & Watkins, are seeing a compounding of their success — and the window is narrowing for other firms to catch up.

On this episode of On the Merits, Chambers CEO Tim Noble and Chief Product & Innovation Officer Lisa Hart Shepherd discuss this first ever report crunching the millions of data points Chambers has collected over the past decade about the top 100 law firms.

“So, we found that there was a huge disparity in performance,” Shepherd said. “You’ve got firms that are growing well over a hundred percent over the period, and we’ve got a few that are declining and everything in between.”

Shepherd said the top performers excelled in premium practices and offered a distinctive client experience.

READ MORE: Chambers Advantage Index

Firms that were growing quickly but don’t have the scale or reputation of the top firms — firms such as Polsinelli and McGuireWoods — need to find an advantage to compete, Noble said. “Targeting talent” is a possible path for these firms to reach the top tier, he said, but these firms are going to need to make “transformational moves” to catch up.

"Culture" is a popular buzzword for law firm leaders describing in vague terms what sets them apart from their rivals. For Winston Taylor's Steve D'Amore, it's a key part of melding the two firms that combined in June in Big Law's latest transatlantic merger.

"We put culture at the top of the list of things that were important to make sure we had right," D'Amore said on Bloomberg Law’s podcast, On The Merits. That includes blending US and European approaches to consensus building and urgency to attain "urgent collaboration" across the newly minted $1.75 billion firm, he said.

Chicago's Winston & Strawn and UK firm Taylor Wessing hired BDO Global to analyze cultural compatibility before the merger was announced and brought the consultants back to look at pain points after completing the tie-up, D'Amore told Bloomberg Law reporter Roy Strom. Winston Taylor's leaders are also trying to bridge gaps on lawyer pay, client conflicts, practice group structures and AI tools.

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AI is changing the way the legal profession operates and everyone — lawyers, law firms, and especially clients — needs to look past the institution that is the billable hour, according to Baker McKenzie global chair Sunny Mann.

“We all need to collectively move on in our thinking to get alternative fee arrangements working in the right way," he said on Bloomberg Law's On The Merits podcast.

Mann spoke to Bloomberg Law reporter Roy Strom about how his firm is using AI to change its relationship with its clients, the role AI played in its recent layoffs of professional staff, and what it's like for him to lead a global law firm during a time when globalization may be on the wane.

Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

Sidley Austin LLP crossed $3.74 billion in revenue last year and has its sights set on $4 billion — but according to its top leader, the number is a byproduct, not the goal. The real question is whether the firm is built for what comes next.

Today on On the Merits: Yvette Ostolaza, chair of Sidley's management committee, sits down with Bloomberg Law reporter Meghan Tribe to discuss strategic lateral hiring, formal integration plans, and a willingness to pull back from practices and geographies that aren't growing.

"There are no sacred cows," Ostolaza said. "We need to continue to evaluate how the industry is changing."

She also weighed in on how Sidley is treating AI: not as a pilot project, but as core leadership infrastructure deployed across the firm with dedicated governance, training, and practice-group liaisons.

"It doesn't replace judgment, it sharpens it," Ostolaza said.

When it comes to winning the legal industry talent wars, the best defense is a good offense, according to K&L Gates' global managing partner, Stacy Ackermann.

Her firm is "going out into the market" rather than "being in a reactionary mode of 'Let's see what comes to us and what the headhunters bring to us,'" Ackermann said.

She spoke to Bloomberg Law editor Chris Opfer on our podcast, On The Merits, about how competitive the market for legal talent has gotten, even in secondary markets like her home base of Charlotte, N.C. She also talked about why K&L Gates is continuing to push its attorneys to use AI, even after some of its attorneys got reprimanded last year for using hallucinated citations in a court case.

"I remember not so long ago that clients would say to me 'Please tell me you're not using AI,'" Ackermann said. "And now they're saying to me 'Please tell me you are using AI.'"

Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.