Big Law Banks Revenue Gains on Rising Billing Rates for Clients

Big Law firms had another strong year, thanks to double-digit billing rate increases and a late surge in middle-market M&A work, Wells Fargo & Co.'s legal banking unit said Wednesday.

The 200 largest US law firms saw revenue climb by roughly 13% last year, as billable rates jumped by nearly 10%, according to Wells Fargo. The increases, largely on par with gains the previous year, were bolstered by results at the country’s 50 largest firms.

“Top firms had obviously solid demand, solid rates—very strong rates again for the third year in a row,” said Owen Burman, a senior consultant in Wells Fargo’s legal banking group.

Demand, as measured by billable hours, grew by 3.5% across the firms. That figure, which was about the same among top 50 and top 200 firms, matched demand growth from a year earlier.

“The strength and breadth of the demand did stand out,” Burman said. While many practices contributed to the performance, the fourth quarter was quite strong and pulled up the full year from around 2.8% at the nine month mark to 3.6% on the year, he said.

The difference was that middle-market M&A joined the party, Burman said. “Firms had a lot of people that were essentially underutilized through half the year,” he said. Lawyers were put to work but that built up a lot of inventory that wasn’t collected which lengthened the billing cycles for very large firms.

While many firms have yet to publicly report their revenue and profit numbers for 2025, some top players have already announced record years.

Litigation powerhouse Quinn Emanuel expects to report at least $2.7 billion in revenue for 2025, with its partner profits passing $9 million for the first time. Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner has its best-year on record with $912 million in revenue last year.

UK-founded Eversheds Sutherland on Wednesday said its US operations surpassed $500 million in revenue for the first time last year, marking a 9.2% increase from the previous year.

The 50 largest US law firms saw revenue climb by 13.3% over the year, according to Wells Fargo. Those firms’ billing rates grew by 10.4%. Revenue grew by 12.6% across the 200 largest firms, the bank found, as billing rates ticked up by 9.6%.

At the same time, law firms experienced rapid expense growth that curtailed their net income. Expenses climbed by 10.2%, up from a 9.1% increase the year prior. Lawyer headcount growth, higher leverage from the more expensive non-equity partner tiers, and technology contributed to expenses.

Costs are likely to continue to climb as firms compete for talent, according to Burman.

“We still see it as very much an investment year and then hopefully the investment tails off or the growth of the investment will slow down,” he said. “But that’s a story for ’27, ’28. not a ’26 story.”