Big Law Mistakenly Shrinks Partner Ranks to Look More Profitable

Welcome back to the Big Law Business column. I’m Roy Strom, and today we look at what it means when law firms meaningfully grow or shrink their roster of equity partners. Sign up to receive this column in your Inbox on Thursday mornings.

The path to equity partnership—Big Law’s most lucrative position—has become a harrowing route, and things only got bleaker last year.

Ninety-eight of the largest firms had 21,075 partners last year, the most recent AmLaw data show. That is 44 fewer than the 21,119 those firms had in 2021. The data excludes two of the 100 largest ...