Latham & Watkins grew revenue by more than a fifth in the last calendar year to a record high of $7bn, against a bullish 29% rise in profit per equity partner (PEP) to $7.1m. 

The Los Angeles giant added $1.3bn to its topline in 2024 after growing fee income by 23%. That growth was achieved in spite of very little increase in headcount – lawyer numbers grew by 4% to just under 4,000. Rather, an increase in revenue per lawyer was the main driver, with RPL ratcheting up 18% to just under $2m. 

The results follow comparatively modest 7% hikes in revenue and PEP in 2023 and mean the firm has more than doubled its revenue over the last seven years. 

It remains to be seen if Latham will be the standout performer as financial reporting season gets underway. 

Among other top 10 US firms that have so far reported, White & Case grew revenue 12.5% in 2024 to $3.3bn against a 27% jump in PEP to $4m. 

Kirkland & Ellis, the largest law firm in the world by revenue and Latham’s major rival, pushed past the $7bn turnover mark in 2023 and should it post an equally robust set of results as Latham for 2024, would see its revenue approach an eye-popping $9bn and PEP push past $10m. 

Latham chair and managing partner, Rich Trobman, described 2024 as “a fantastic year across the board” for the firm.

“High demand saw strong increases in market share across many transactional and litigation practices, and we are grateful to our clients for their unwavering confidence in our firm. The strength of our platform lies in our depth of expertise across practices, industries and markets, and we have continued to make significant investments in key strategic areas,” he added. 

Latham reported double-digit growth in major practices last year including M&A, private equity, capital markets, banking, complex commercial litigation, and antitrust and competition. 

The firm’s strength in large-cap and mid-market deals globally was underscored by its topping numerous league tables in 2024, among them London Stock Exchange Group’s (LSEG’s) UK M&A legal advisor rankings by deal value. It was also the leading European private equity legal advisor by value, according to Bloomberg.

Globally the firm fell one place to third by M&A deal value, acting on deals worth $408.4bn behind Skadden’s $422bn and Kirkland’s market-topping $448.2bn, according to the LSEG. Standout work included advising Equitrans Midstream on its merger with EQT, creating a $35bn combined oil and gas company, and acting for Permira in its $7.2bn take-private acquisition of Squarespace.  

On the capital markets side, the firm acted on 31 US IPOs, more than twice as many as second-ranked Cooley, according to research by Deal Point Data, and can boast a 50% market share of traditional IPOs worth more than $100m. The firm acted on eight of 2024’s largest IPOs, including logistics giant Lineage’s $4.4bn debut with Nasdaq, the biggest IPO of the year. 

Meantime, Latham’s litigation practice secured the US Supreme Court decision for client Relentless that overturned the decades-old Chevron deference doctrine, which had required courts to defer to Executive Branch agencies when resolving the meaning of ambiguous statutes.

It also secured a ruling for software company SolarWinds, knocking out the bulk of the claims brought by the US Securities and Exchange Commission in a landmark lawsuit.

Latham doesn’t disclose office revenues, though GLP understands its London office – the largest among US firms by both lawyer headcount and revenue – grew turnover by 25% last year to $850m. 

The firm has increased its London partner count by 50% over the past five years to 140 but saw an unusual amount of churn in the City last year, losing 13 mostly finance partners to rivals – more than double its average rate over the previous four years according to data from legal recruiter Edwards Gibson. 

Latham moved to restock its London finance bench last May with a trio of lender-side leveraged finance partners from Cahill Gordon & Reindel and over the course of the year brought on 10 partners across banking, private credit, disputes, tax, M&A and energy and infrastructure. 

Key US partner laterals for the firm last year included a quartet of bankruptcy partners from Weil Gotshal & Manges in New York led by Ray Schrock, who joined as global chair of its restructuring and special situations practice.

Tracey Zaccone also joined in New York from Simpson Thacher as global co-chair of the hybrid capital practice, while partners Seth Gottlieb and Alex Kassai moved over from Cooley in the Bay Area to support the growth of Latham’s emerging companies capability on the West Coast. 

The firm also promoted 34 associates and 19 counsel to partner last year across US-focused rounds in January and March.