Am Law 100 2022 Forum

[Anonymous User]

The "premier league" and "championship league" table is bizarre and confusing.

The whole list makes no sense. In what world is Fenwick and Paul Hastings ahead of Cooley? Why are firms like Sheppard Mullin and Dechert on the list, but not Mayer Brown. Why is Sidley so low? Why Is Kirland international and Latham Globalist? How is Cahill ahead of Cravath?

This is the dumbest list on the planet and WAYYYYYYY worse than Vault. IDK why they thought this was a good idea.

Is Fenwick being ahead of Cooley surprising?

[Anonymous User]

What's the deal with Cahill? Less name recognition than all of the firms around it in PPP/RPL.

Edit: also why is Cleary RPL not in top 25? Are associates billing fewer hours there?

[anymouseqwerty]

Here's the methodology:

"League tables are set based on a composite score of 2021 PPEP, CAP and head count growth in 2020 and 2021. The rankings within Premier and Championship Leagues are based on a weighted composite score of current RPL, PEP and CAP, as well as short-term, mid-term and long-term gains on RPL and CAP on an inflation-adjusted basis. Weighting is applied to emphasize recent gains. “Practice Cachet” and “Sector Focus” ratings are based on an analysis of the Chambers USA Nationwide Guide for 2021; 45 ranked firms combined for just under 1,000 appearances on 123 tables, with about half the tables indicating some sector orientation. Weighting was applied for higher band rankings and two separate scores calculated after normalizing for size."

Seems reasonable. They are combining financial performance and Chambers. It's about time someone did it.

I like their attempt to create a forward-looking ranking based on current metrics. Vault focuses on past glory and it takes years, perhaps even a decade, for vault to reflect current performance.

That being said, whether people like the ranking will be correlated with whether their firm does well in the ranking.

[Anonymous User]

What's the deal with Cahill? Less name recognition than all of the firms around it in PPP/RPL.

Edit: also why is Cleary RPL not in top 25? Are associates billing fewer hours there?

Cahill is the closest thing to a transactional boutique, it's single office about 300 attorneys and focuses heavily on finance. They pay above market bonuses but don't really make waves.

[Anonymous User]

The "premier league" and "championship league" table is bizarre and confusing.

The whole list makes no sense. In what world is Fenwick and Paul Hastings ahead of Cooley? Why are firms like Sheppard Mullin and Dechert on the list, but not Mayer Brown. Why is Sidley so low? Why Is Kirland international and Latham Globalist? How is Cahill ahead of Cravath?

This is the dumbest list on the planet and WAYYYYYYY worse than Vault. IDK why they thought this was a good idea.

Is Fenwick being ahead of Cooley surprising?

No, it's not rocket science when you look at the methodology (The rankings within Premier and Championship Leagues are based on a weighted composite score of current RPL, PEP and CAP, as well as short-term, mid-term and long-term gains on RPL and CAP on an inflation-adjusted basis.)

[Anonymous User]

Pardon the ignorance, but for the life of me, I can't think of what CAP stands for. Anyone willing to fill me in on this all-important metric???

[Sackboy]

Pardon the ignorance, but for the life of me, I can't think of what CAP stands for. Anyone willing to fill me in on this all-important metric???

Based on a comment above mentioning that some ranking includes Chambers, I assume CAP is Chambers Associates & Partners (or w/e its official name is).

[Buglaw]

The "premier league" and "championship league" table is bizarre and confusing.

The whole list makes no sense. In what world is Fenwick and Paul Hastings ahead of Cooley? Why are firms like Sheppard Mullin and Dechert on the list, but not Mayer Brown. Why is Sidley so low? Why Is Kirland international and Latham Globalist? How is Cahill ahead of Cravath?

This is the dumbest list on the planet and WAYYYYYYY worse than Vault. IDK why they thought this was a good idea.

Is Fenwick being ahead of Cooley surprising?

No, it's not rocket science when you look at the methodology (The rankings within Premier and Championship Leagues are based on a weighted composite score of current RPL, PEP and CAP, as well as short-term, mid-term and long-term gains on RPL and CAP on an inflation-adjusted basis.)

I mean, you can make up metrics for anything, but it's a poor ranking of what people actually think of when they think of strong law firms. If your law school rankings have the University of Wisconsin ranked 10th, you have chosen a poor formula. I don't really think of Fenwick as being materially better than Cooley and on a different level. That is suprising to me. Maybe not others. I think this ranking is materially less useful than even Vault.

[Anonymous User]

The "premier league" and "championship league" table is bizarre and confusing.

The whole list makes no sense. In what world is Fenwick and Paul Hastings ahead of Cooley? Why are firms like Sheppard Mullin and Dechert on the list, but not Mayer Brown. Why is Sidley so low? Why Is Kirland international and Latham Globalist? How is Cahill ahead of Cravath?

This is the dumbest list on the planet and WAYYYYYYY worse than Vault. IDK why they thought this was a good idea.

Is Fenwick being ahead of Cooley surprising?

No, it's not rocket science when you look at the methodology (The rankings within Premier and Championship Leagues are based on a weighted composite score of current RPL, PEP and CAP, as well as short-term, mid-term and long-term gains on RPL and CAP on an inflation-adjusted basis.)

I mean, you can make up metrics for anything, but it's a poor ranking of what people actually think of when they think of strong law firms. If your law school rankings have the University of Wisconsin ranked 10th, you have chosen a poor formula. I don't really think of Fenwick as being materially better than Cooley and on a different level. That is suprising to me. Maybe not others. I think this ranking is materially less useful than even Vault.

Counterpoint - what makes Cooley so much better than Fenwick besides Vault rankings which we all heavily criticize here? I'm not in SV/SF nor am I tech/startup guy, but I generally thought WSGR, Fenwick and Cooley were all peers in California, and Cooley had a big but not elite practice on the east coast. Are you saying Cooley's east coast presence puts them over the top of Fenwick?

[Anonymous User]

The "premier league" and "championship league" table is bizarre and confusing.

The whole list makes no sense. In what world is Fenwick and Paul Hastings ahead of Cooley? Why are firms like Sheppard Mullin and Dechert on the list, but not Mayer Brown. Why is Sidley so low? Why Is Kirland international and Latham Globalist? How is Cahill ahead of Cravath?

This is the dumbest list on the planet and WAYYYYYYY worse than Vault. IDK why they thought this was a good idea.

Is Fenwick being ahead of Cooley surprising?

No, it's not rocket science when you look at the methodology (The rankings within Premier and Championship Leagues are based on a weighted composite score of current RPL, PEP and CAP, as well as short-term, mid-term and long-term gains on RPL and CAP on an inflation-adjusted basis.)

I mean, you can make up metrics for anything, but it's a poor ranking of what people actually think of when they think of strong law firms. If your law school rankings have the University of Wisconsin ranked 10th, you have chosen a poor formula. I don't really think of Fenwick as being materially better than Cooley and on a different level. That is suprising to me. Maybe not others. I think this ranking is materially less useful than even Vault.

Really? Because the inputs seem exactly what you would want to consider when comparing/ranking law firms.

[Anonymous User]

Seems like momentum is for Milbank to land in the v15 next ranking. Crazy to think how much their reputation has changed in the last 5-10 years.

Who's the next rising star? Fried Frank? Maybe Shearman makes a comeback?

[Moneytrees]

Seems like momentum is for Milbank to land in the v15 next ranking. Crazy to think how much their reputation has changed in the last 5-10 years.

Who's the next rising star? Fried Frank? Maybe Shearman makes a comeback?

That's what the question the "Premier League" ranking is supposed to answer. It just did so in a very convoluted and bizarre way.

[Anonymous User]

.

[Anonymous User]

Seems like momentum is for Milbank to land in the v15 next ranking. Crazy to think how much their reputation has changed in the last 5-10 years.

Who's the next rising star? Fried Frank? Maybe Shearman makes a comeback?

Inshallah. Money talks. I don’t work at Milbank but I believe it’s in all associates’ interest to train BL firms that comp moves translate 1:1 into Vault moves.

IMO ~V25 is underrating Milbank significantly, and it definitely ought to leapfrog some meh firms in the V15-V25 range. (You can argue, however, that my POV is skewed by the fact I’m in NY, and also Milbank is already Band 1 in my practice area.)

[Anonymous User]

Kind of an aside, but I thought the "Avg. Partner Compensation" column from the Kings of the Hill chart was pretty revealing. Since firms most definitely bill out nonequity partners at "generic" partner rates, I think it's only fair to include those partners in the PPP calculations. PPEP really makes no sense and masks the strength of firms with only equity partnerships. You have places like Latham and STB dropping a bit when you include income partners in the calculations. But LOL at Kirkland plummeting from $7.4 million to $3.4 million. They really are just being propped up by an army of income partners. They may want to say they're on the same level as the NY elite, but they're still leagues behind. There, I said it

[Anonymous User]

Kind of an aside, but I thought the "Avg. Partner Compensation" column from the Kings of the Hill chart was pretty revealing. Since firms most definitely bill out nonequity partners at "generic" partner rates, I think it's only fair to include those partners in the PPP calculations. PPEP really makes no sense and masks the strength of firms with only equity partnerships. You have places like Latham and STB dropping a bit when you include income partners in the calculations. But LOL at Kirkland plummeting from $7.4 million to $3.4 million. They really are just being propped up by an army of income partners. They may want to say they're on the same level as the NY elite, but they're still leagues behind. There, I said it

Can you post the ranking with non-equity partners included?

[Sackboy]

I hate Kirkland threads, but I'm sorry you wasted a whole paragraph of time writing out that nonsense. KE's NSPs are largely 7-8th year associates and probably have a comparable number of non-equity partners to many firms on a per lawyer basis if you look at 9th yr+. New York white shoe simps are fucking weird.

[Anonymous User]

Can someone post the full 100? Online I can only see the top 50 without a subscription.

[Anonymous User]

Kind of an aside, but I thought the "Avg. Partner Compensation" column from the Kings of the Hill chart was pretty revealing. Since firms most definitely bill out nonequity partners at "generic" partner rates, I think it's only fair to include those partners in the PPP calculations. PPEP really makes no sense and masks the strength of firms with only equity partnerships. You have places like Latham and STB dropping a bit when you include income partners in the calculations. But LOL at Kirkland plummeting from $7.4 million to $3.4 million. They really are just being propped up by an army of income partners. They may want to say they're on the same level as the NY elite, but they're still leagues behind. There, I said it

I don't even know where to begin with this reasoning but best luck with companies whose deals you are working on. They will need it.

[Anonymous User]

Kind of an aside, but I thought the "Avg. Partner Compensation" column from the Kings of the Hill chart was pretty revealing. Since firms most definitely bill out nonequity partners at "generic" partner rates, I think it's only fair to include those partners in the PPP calculations. PPEP really makes no sense and masks the strength of firms with only equity partnerships. You have places like Latham and STB dropping a bit when you include income partners in the calculations. But LOL at Kirkland plummeting from $7.4 million to $3.4 million. They really are just being propped up by an army of income partners. They may want to say they're on the same level as the NY elite, but they're still leagues behind. There, I said it

NSPs at KE are not billed as generic partners. I don't even work at KE but I have seen this billing NSPs as equity partners claim being debunked in multiple threads.

Say what you want about KE but the idea of elite being applied to any NY firm but wachtell is just funny. All are indistinguishably filled with median NYU and top 1/3 fordham students pushing papers. If that's elite then yeah I guess we all are elites.

[Anonymous User]

Kind of an aside, but I thought the "Avg. Partner Compensation" column from the Kings of the Hill chart was pretty revealing.

Since firms most definitely bill out nonequity partners at "generic" partner rates

, I think it's only fair to include those partners in the PPP calculations. PPEP really makes no sense and masks the strength of firms with only equity partnerships. You have places like Latham and STB dropping a bit when you include income partners in the calculations. But LOL at Kirkland plummeting from $7.4 million to $3.4 million. They really are just being propped up by an army of income partners. They may want to say they're on the same level as the NY elite, but they're still leagues behind. There, I said it

Lol how dumb do you think their clients are? This is the dumbest take I've seen in a while and there is a lot of dumb shit on this forum

[Anonymous User]

Kind of an aside, but I thought the "Avg. Partner Compensation" column from the Kings of the Hill chart was pretty revealing. Since firms most definitely bill out nonequity partners at "generic" partner rates, I think it's only fair to include those partners in the PPP calculations. PPEP really makes no sense and masks the strength of firms with only equity partnerships. You have places like Latham and STB dropping a bit when you include income partners in the calculations. But LOL at Kirkland plummeting from $7.4 million to $3.4 million. They really are just being propped up by an army of income partners. They may want to say they're on the same level as the NY elite, but they're still leagues behind. There, I said it

In-house person here. I've not worked with Kirkland as a client (only across the table), but we've been pitched by Kirkland for deal work. They really fought us on providing actual billing rates (just insisting that they could "work with us" on hitting budget targets), but when pressed they provided billing rates for each attorney that was proposed for the project. The PCs were in the $1,700-2000 range and the NSPs were in the $1,300-1,500 range, mid-level associates in the $900-1,000 range, juniors were $600-700. YMMV by market and project type I'm sure. Most in-house counsel that are sophisticated enough to be hiring Kirkland are sophisticated enough to understand the difference between an NSP and an equity partner.