Welcome to The Legal 500 United States.
Current rankings and information online are taken from The Legal 500 United States 2025 edition, which was published on 11 June 2025. Please use the menu to navigate through the practice areas.
The US edition of The Legal 500 is now in its 18th 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 2025 edition?
In the latest 2025 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 top firms.
We are pleased to recognize a total of 343 firms in this year’s edition, including members of the Amlaw 100 – showcasing our commitment to recognizing firms handling high-level, nationally significant work across practice areas.
Individual recognitions have shot up in the new rankings, including a grand total of 2001 attorneys ranked as Leading Partners, an increase of 14%. We are also delighted to rank 257 Leading Associates, and 777 Next Generation Partners.
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.
Approach
We organise each practice area into a single national ranking, eschewing a state-by-state approach. We look at firms with the capability and reach to handle sophisticated and complex work. 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 by tier. 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