The skyscrapers of Manhattan house some of the most elite firms in the profession—institutions synonymous with power, pedigree and the most lucrative mandates on earth. They are consistently viewed as the leading names in the world's leading legal market.

Yet even with that prestige and profitability at home, many Wall Street names are now looking across the Atlantic. The battle for talent, clients and market-defining deals has increasingly moved to London. Some firms are building substantial practices in the city, especially in recent years, while others maintain a far lighter, or non-existent, presence.

Law.com has analysed the scale of the historical 'White Shoe' firms' London operations to see how they compare, exposing a split in strategies across the grouping.

A global analysis of partner exits between September 2022 and September 2025 shows that Kirkland partners—most of which are non-equity partners, but also some with equity—overwhelmingly secure high-status roles elsewhere, most frequently at AmLaw 100 firms.

According to data compiled by law firm data company Pirical, around 54% of departing partners move into partnerships at AmLaw 50 firms, while the remainder leave for other firms, head in-house and into advisory roles, or retire.

Among the destination firms, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison emerges as the most common landing spot globally, absorbing 6% of Kirkland’s identifiable partner exits over the three year period.

While U.S. firms perform strongly across all three measures, several major U.K. firms still make their mark. When looking solely at the total volume of hours completed, Freshfields, Linklaters and A&O Shearman all place within the top 10, showing that althrough lawyer participation and average pro bono hours per lawyer may be lower, the overall impact of their pro bono work remains significant.

The rankings are based on survey responses from firms that rank in the UK top 50 as well as U.S.-based firms with at least 100 lawyers in the U.K. They take into account total pro bono hours, average hours per lawyer, and overall participation rates.

Which is more important, growth or profitability? It is question the U.K.'s largest 50 law firms have grappled with in the last financial year.

In many ways it was a strong year. Revenues continued to rise across the 50 largest firms in the 12 months to April 2025, and this filtered down to profits. At the average top 50 firm, revenue was up 9.4% and profits up 15.6%.

However, a lot of the overall growth was driven by smaller firms, with many posting more impressive double-digit rises compared with the single digit increases seen at most large firms.

Another common theme this year is a general rise in equity partner numbers, which rose by an average 9.6%, resulting in only modest average profit per equity partner growth of 6.2%—almost half last year's gain. Undoubtedly a play for the future, the addition of more equity partners should help drive the business in the future, but it dilutes PEP in the short term.

Instead of focusing on average PEP, the top 50 firms appear to have focused on rewarding their top earners; the average top of equity rose significantly—Law.com will publish more data on PEP shortly.

As Pride Month begins, the usual chorus of law firm support on LinkedIn and beyond is noticeably quiet. This year feels different.

Fewer rainbow logos. Fewer public declarations. And, according to insiders, far less happening behind firm walls too.

Research by Law.com International has found that of the global top 20 firms only five firms have so far taken to their social accounts to acknowledge Pride Month compared to 17 that posted to either Instagram or LinkedIn in 2024. Last year, most of those firms had made posts by this point in the month and most had done so in previous years as well.