From the Editor

Welcome to The Legal 500 United States.

Current rankings and information online are taken from The Legal 500 United States 2023 edition, which was published on 7 June 2023. Please use the menu to navigate through the practice areas.

The US edition of The Legal 500 is now in its 16th year and, like the other established editions of the guide, is relied upon by millions of buyers of legal services worldwide when they need to instruct outside counsel.

What’s new in the 2023 edition?

In the latest 2023 edition of the Legal 500 United States, we are delighted to have continued the expansion of our coverage of the US legal market, highlighting new trends and developments across the jurisdiction’s elite firms.

We are pleased to welcome six new firms to the rankings – including members of the Amlaw 100 – showcasing our commitment to recognizing firms handling high-level, nationally significant work across practice areas.

Having first introduced our Firms to Watch category in the 2022 rankings, this latest edition has seen 15 more firms feature as Firms to Watch in various areas, recognizing new and growing practices as well as teams with notable strength in a particular area of law.

Additionally, our new spotlight tables allow firms with expertise in growing niche areas to enjoy the limelight – we have seen a total of 31 recognitions across our four new categories for crypto, congressional investigations, broker-dealer regulatory, and climate change litigation.

Individual recognitions have shot up in the new rankings, including a grand total of 200 new Leading Individuals – an increase of 15%. We are also delighted to rank 35 new Rising Stars – a similar increase of around 16%. The basis for inclusion

Our team of experienced researchers – which includes both qualified journalists and lawyers – spend several months each year conducting in-depth research into the market. The primary source of our information is the law firms themselves, and the information they provide is often not for public consumption. This allows us to properly assess them against one another, practice area by practice area. We also gather feedback from peers and clients to assess their overall visibility and reputation. The process culminates in detailed rankings and editorial, providing buyers of legal services with an objective analysis of the US market that is updated annually.

Elite approach

Where other guides to the market seek to be exhaustive, we are exclusive, deliberately focusing on the true superstars of the profession. We organise each practice area into a single national ranking, eschewing a state-by-state approach. Only a small number of firms in the US have a truly national presence coupled with the capability to handle sophisticated and complex work; these are the ones we choose to highlight here. This is not a game of numbers – indeed many of the firms included are small, single-office firms – but simply a question of quality.

Emphasis on teams, not individuals

With the notable exception of our leading trial lawyers list, we do not rank individual lawyers. We do highlight certain key individuals within the editorial paragraphs and in our individual rankings, but our principal aim is to provide a snapshot of the market based on our assessment of the overall strength and depth of a practice group.

As your US editor, I would welcome your feedback and ideas about how we can further develop the rankings and evolve the guide to ensure it appropriately reflects this largest legal market in the world. Please do get in touch.

Barnaby Merrill

Editor, The Legal 500 United States

 

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