The world’s first $10bn law firm. The scale of Kirkland’s 2025 financial results defies easy comprehension, with the firm now generating more revenue than Linklaters, Freshfields and Clifford Chance combined.
That headline turnover figure emphasises just how far ahead of its competitors the firm has now moved, after first rising to the top of the Global 100 in 2018.
Here, we run the numbers to see how Kirkland stacks up against the rest of the top end of the global legal market.
Kirkland’s revenue rivals aren’t keeping up
Over the past decade, Kirkland has outpaced its competitors by a huge margin. The firm has now increased its revenues by almost 400% since 2014, rising from $2.15bn to $10.56bn in 2025.
Its nearest competitor, Latham & Watkins, has increased its revenue by less than 170% over the same period – though its 2025 figures are yet to be released.
The difference is even starker when compared to the other firms in the global top five by turnover, with DLA Piper and Skadden both posting revenue growth of less than 70% over the decade.
Ten-year revenue growth: the world’s five largest law firms
Bigger than any other two firms combined (excluding Latham)
Kirkland’s huge revenue now means it is bigger than the combined revenues of any other two firms, with the exception of Latham.
Those two firms stand so far ahead of the market in revenue terms that no combination of two other firms would come close to Kirkland – for example, a merger of DLA Piper and Baker McKenzie would create a firm less than three quarters the size of Kirkland.
While a recent rash of mergers has seen major law firms play for scale, even the biggest of those deals – Allen & Overy’s tie-up with Shearman & Sterling and Hogan Lovells’ proposed combination with Cadwalader – are still less than half the size of Kirkland.
Kirkland vs three hypothetical mega-mergers
Kirkland pips the Wall Street elite on PEP
As well as the sheer size of its top line, Kirkland is also now top by profit per equity partner (PEP), ahead of long-time first-place firm Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz, as well as other elite Wall Street players such as Davis Polk and Simpson Thacher.
While the difference is less stark than revenue, its most recent results saw Kirkland increase its PEP by 20% to $11.1m – a figure that equates to more than $30,000 a day, meaning the average Kirkland partner would earn more than the US annual median wage in less than two days.
Ten-year PEP growth: the most profitable Global 100 firms
The only Fortune 500 law firm
The sheer scale of Kirkland’s revenue pushes it into the territory where comparisons with other law firms begin to become inadequate.
By revenue, it is the only law firm currently large enough to rank in the Fortune 500, which ranks the largest US corporations by revenue and which last year had a threshold of $7.4bn for inclusion.
The firm’s 2025 turnover of $10.6bn would place it roughly 400th, ahead of household name brands such as eBay and News Corp, and just behind Airbnb, at around $11bn.
