A surging private equity market, the City’s first $10m lateral and two law firms passing the $3bn mark. At first glance, 2017 looks to have been another boom year for international players in London. Neither did it hurt that City practices in a significant number of cases outpaced firm-wide revenue growth at many prominent US brands, including Latham & Watkins, White & Case, Paul Hastings, Sidley Austin, Cooley and Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy.
Tragically for legal reporters, the story is a little more nuanced as a whole. Lawyer numbers at the 50 firms that make up our Global London table certainly reached new heights in 2017 at 6,212 but are up overall by a steady rather than spectacular 3%.
