Methodology and end notes
The firms that appear in the 2014 Global 100 are the largest 100 law firms in the world ranked by revenue.
FINANCIAL YEAR-END
Financial data shown is for the last financial year – either calendar year 2013 or 2013/14. Financial years differ – most end in December in the US, and in April in the UK.
Legal Business takes the compilation of the Global 100 very seriously. We make every effort to ensure that the figures we publish are accurate and precise. The overwhelming majority of firms co-operate fully with us in this regard by providing us with the required information. Some firms choose not to co-operate officially with our data collection process and in these circumstances we rely on figures given to us by trusted but anonymous sources.
Firms with a † symbol next to their name chose not to provide any financial information or provided unaudited estimates for revenue and PEP.
DEFINITIONS
Turnover/revenue
Revenue figures do not include VAT, disbursements, interest or anything other than the worldwide fees generated by lawyers for their work during the last financial year.
Headcount
Total lawyer numbers include partners, trainees, assistants, associates, of counsel and all other fully qualified lawyers but do not include legal executives, paralegals or other support staff. Reflecting standard reporting practice in the US, US firms have been asked for full time equivalent lawyers over the financial year. UK-based law firms have been asked for headcount figures for the last day of their financial year.
Equity partners
We define full equity partners as partners that are full participants in the firm’s profits.
Non-equity partners
Non-equity partners, be they fixed-share, salaried, or laterals on probationary periods, are those that are not full participants in the firm’s profits, though they may have voting rights.
Net income
We define net income as the total profits that are available to be shared among all the equity partners. We treat profit sharing with non-equity partners as an expense, and it is therefore not included in the net income figure.
Profit per equity partner (PEP)
We calculate PEP by dividing net income by the number of full equity partners as of the end of the financial year.
Revenue per lawyer (RPL) and profit per lawyer (PPL)
RPL is calculated by dividing turnover by the total number of lawyers. PPL is calculated by dividing net income by the total number of lawyers.
Profit margin
Profit margin is net income as a percentage of turnover.
Turnover change 2009-14
This figure is straight percentage increase in revenue between the 2008/09 financial year and the 2013/14 financial year.
EXCHANGE RATES
We have used annual average exchange rates for 2013 given by the US Federal Reserve for any currency conversions.
• £1 equals $1.5642.
• €1 equals $1.3281.
• AUS$1 equals $0.9683.
All year-on-year and five-year revenue and profitability percentage changes are based on figures reported in dollars for the relevant years, which may not be an accurate reflection of how a firm has performed in its home currency during the same period.
FOOTNOTES
1. Baker & McKenzie – figures included here apply to the year ending 30 June 2013 and are therefore six months behind most of the US firms and nine months behind the UK firms.
2. The UK headquartered firms – at the time of going to press, these firms had not finalised and audited their LLP accounts and these figures are subject to fluctuation. See the Legal Business 100 in September for the precise figures. Percentage changes on 2013 for UK firm figures are applied to the final, signed-off figures that appeared in the Legal Business 100 2013 (LB237) before being converted into dollars and compared to last year’s Global 100 dollar figure.
3. Norton Rose and Fulbright & Jaworski merged on 1 June 2013 to form Norton Rose Fulbright.
4. Dentons – on 28 March 2013, SNR Denton, Salans and Fraser Milner Casgrain combined to form Dentons.
5. King & Wood Mallesons – King & Wood Mallesons and SJ Berwin merged on 1 November 2013. The figure published here represents the combined revenues of both firms.
6. Ashurst – data includes Ashurst Australia (Blake Dawson), as a full financial integration between the firms took place on 1 November 2013 .
7. Australian firms. Australian law firms have a year-end of 30 June. As such, figures in this report refer to financial results posted in summer 2013.
8. FIDAL – this firm does not operate a conventional equity partnership but comprises 615 shareholders, each of whom are paid a salary. These we classify as partners for the purposes of this survey. Of these, 82 individuals (including managing partners, regional directors, department directors and technical directors, earn an average of €317,000 – we classify these as equity partners for the purposes of this report.