Sixteen months after Allen & Overy and Shearman & Sterling finalized their landmark merger, A&O Shearman has made progress toward its vision of combining top-tier work, global reach, and dual U.S./U.K. capabilities, reporting $3.7 billion in revenue and a $2.7 million PEP in fiscal year 2025.

As 2025 nears its end, law firm leaders across the Am Law 200 are cautiously optimistic — and many confident — that the year will be a financial success despite political and economic turbulence. Firms have leaned on billing rate hikes, litigation growth, and quick pivots to offset soft demand and sluggish mid-market deals, with many on pace to beat 2024’s strong results.

Mega M&A deals are making a comeback, with Anglo American’s proposed $53 billion merger with Teck and Union Pacific’s $85 billion bid for Norfolk Southern signaling renewed appetite for large-scale transactions.

Legal AI company Harvey has launched a law school alliance program to integrate its generative AI technology into classrooms at participating schools, including Stanford, NYU, Michigan, UCLA, the University of Texas, and Notre Dame, with more schools invited to join. Read more on our blog.

King & Spalding, founded in 1885 in Atlanta, has grown from its Southern roots into a global powerhouse with 24 offices across 10 countries. The firm built its reputation early through work with the railroad industry and long-standing relationships with clients like Coca-Cola, later expanding into New York, Washington, D.C., and Houston before continuing worldwide.

Kirkland & Ellis, the world’s highest-grossing law firm, recently appointed its first-ever chief operating officer, Gary Levin, marking a significant shift toward the broader Big Law trend of hiring business executives to manage firm operations.

Kirkland & Ellis, the world’s highest-grossing law firm, recently appointed its first-ever chief operating officer, Gary Levin, marking a significant shift toward the broader Big Law trend of hiring business executives to manage firm operations.

In the past week, deal activity remained dominated by large-scale transactions despite an overall slowdown in volume, with 13 deals exceeding $1 billion—including the $10.5 billion acquisition of CommScope’s connectivity and cable solutions business by Amphenol, advised by Latham, Wachtell, and Simpson Thacher.

McDermott Will & Schulte, the newly formed Am Law 50 firm resulting from the merger of McDermott Will & Emery and Schulte Roth & Zabel, has begun integrating leadership across key committees, with former Schulte leaders taking on major roles.

Skadden, Wachtell, Sidley, and Covington played key roles in facilitating a historic merger between Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern, marking the largest railroad combination of the decade. The $250 billion cash-and-stock deal, in which Union Pacific will acquire Norfolk Southern (valued at $85 billion), creates the first-ever transcontinental railroad in the U.S. and is projected to deliver $2.75 billion in annual synergies.

Kirkland & Ellis, the world’s highest-grossing law firm, recently appointed its first-ever chief operating officer, Gary Levin, marking a significant shift toward the broader Big Law trend of hiring business executives to manage firm operations.

Despite geopolitical tensions and economic uncertainty, global M&A activity surged in the first half of 2025, with total deal value rising 33% year-over-year to $1.98 trillion—the strongest first-half showing since 2022.

Kirkland & Ellis is a global elite law firm with over 3,500 lawyers, known for its strength in corporate, litigation, M&A, private equity, intellectual property, and restructuring.

The rise of the non-equity (or salaried) partner tier—spearheaded by firms like Kirkland & Ellis—has fundamentally reshaped the legal market, turning what was once seen as a “gaming the system” tactic into the dominant partnership model.

In the first half of 2025, Kirkland & Ellis has added about 100 litigators, signaling a broader trend among top law firms investing heavily in products liability and mass torts litigation.

In fiscal year 2024, Los Angeles saw the fastest attorney headcount growth among major U.S. legal markets, with NLJ 500 firms increasing their local lawyer population by 6%—outpacing New York, D.C., and Chicago.

In the post-pandemic legal hiring landscape, law firms have increasingly turned to predictive Al tools to evaluate candidates for 2L summer associate roles.