In the decade since the Great Recession, the largest U.S. law firms have mirrored their global clients, spreading their footprint in an effort to bring in more business. In doing so, they’ve opened offices from Sheffield to Shanghai and everywhere in between, adding thousands of international attorneys, with some firms focused on operating in key financial centers, and others looking to open in as many locales as possible.
A review of 10 years of data for the 2019 Am Law 200 firms shows that the 110 firms on the list with international lawyers have added 6,626 lawyers and 198 offices outside the United States, when accounting for mergers, openings, closings, hirings and departures. (Firms without 2009 data available were not included.) That amounts to an 8% increase in offices around the world and 35% growth in global lawyers employed by the biggest U.S. firms.
