The New York City legal market in numbers

The sheer size of the New York legal market relative to other US markets makes it rather unique. The city is by far the largest legal hub in the United States, with close to 10,000 Partners from AM Law 200 & Global 200 firms calling it home.

Using publicly-available data from Pirical Legal Professionals, we've taken a look at some of the trends and shifts driving the NYC market's ever-growing Partner population.

Firms have been growing their Partner numbers through lateral hires and increasingly, promotions

The volume of lateral Partner hires in New York has been consistently high since 2021 and the first half of 2024 saw a lot of movement

Lateral hires in NYC bounced back from a quiet 2020 and 2024 looks set to be as active as recent years, with almost 400 Partner moves to major firms occurring in the first half of the year.

The American Lawyer recently reported that the number of AM Law 50 Partner moves through the first two quarters of this year is tied for the second-highest total through Q2 of the last six years (in particular New York and London), with the increase being partly down to "a natural recovery, as firms are starting to feel like they’ve evened out."

Firms are also growing by promoting more and more Associates to Partner

Partner promotions in New York City grew by 114% between 2020-2023 and the 788 promotions recorded last year surpassed the number of lateral hires (579).

This significant increase could relate to stiffer competition for talent and the growing trend of law firms adopting 2 tier Partnership models. As Thomson Reuters state, "Since early 2020, the average law firm has replenished the ranks of its non-equity Partner tier at a noticeably higher rate than it has for its equity Partner tier."

The firms that promoted the most Associates to Partner in 2023, did so at varying levels of experience

Combined, Kirkland & Ellis, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett and Latham & Watkins made over 100 NYC based promotions in 2023.

However, the firms differed when it came to years of experience. Kirkland & Ellis predominantly promoted Associates with 6-7 years of experience, while Latham & Watkins and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett handed out promotions to more experienced attorneys.

BigLaw dominates growth in New York City and the fastest growing firms deployed different strategies to get there

The fastest growing firms in New York City are primarily from the AM Law top 30

Allen & Overy's merger with Shearman & Sterling helped the firm increase its NYC Partner headcount, while Kirkland & Ellis and Latham & Watkins have significantly added to their Partner numbers since 2020.

The lower ranked AM Law 100 firms are struggling to keep pace with the top 30

In 2020 and 2021, AM Law firms ranked 31-100 had higher rates of Partner growth than the top 30. But over the last few years, the top 30 AM Law firms have grown their NYC Partner numbers at a much higher rate.

In the last 12 months, the top 30 firms have increased Partner headcount by 6.8%, compared to just 1.2% for the rest of the AM Law 100.

The fastest growing firms had different strategies

Corporate and Litigation work remain the largest practices in New York City, but Cybersecurity has seen the highest growth

Corporate practices are still key

As the financial centre of the United States, "much of the practice is driven by corporate work and all of the firms located in NYC have financial institutions as clients." Georgetown Law's summary of the dominant practice work in New York is reflected in our data, with strong growth in Investment Funds (+28%), Emerging Companies & Venture Capital (+23%), and M&A (+22%).

Cybersecurity, Privacy & Data Protection has been booming

The fastest growing practice area since 2020, by some margin, is Cybersecurity, Privacy & Data Protection (+50%). In a recent article, we found that AM Law 100 Partner numbers in Cybersecurity had shot up in both NYC (+79%) and Chicago (+71%).

According to leaders of Sidley Austin's Privacy and Cybersecurity practice, views around privacy and data security are changing: "Concerns about misinformation and the misuse of personal information have created a 'crisis of new technologies' or 'techlash', which has shifted popular views about privacy in the United States and forced the hand of legislators and regulators."

Litigation work has seen relatively little growth in NYC

Despite Partner numbers in Litigation practices remaining high (over 3,200 Partners), growth in the practice has been quite low (+9%). The only Litigation practice areas that have seen significant growth are Real Estate (+49%) and Construction Litigation (+48%).

Note on methodology

Source: Pirical Legal Professionals, using publicly available data

Timeframe: 2020 - 2024

Written using publicly-available data from Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP)

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