White & Case’s revenue in 2025 increased by 8.5% to hit $3.6bn, fuelling a 10% jump in profit per equity partner (PEP) to $4.4m.
The New York firm’s results represent a slowdown from its growth in 2024, when revenue rose by 12.5% against a 27% jump in PEP, reflecting the strong revival in global deal markets in 2024.
Revenue per lawyer was up 6% to $1.4m, and net income increased by 4.8% to $1.5bn while expenses climbed by 10% to $1.8bn.
The firm also released numbers for its London arm, where revenue increased by 5% to around $584m. Over the last five years, the office’s revenue has increased by 47%.
Vice-chair Oliver Brettle, who is based in London, said 2025 had been a “successful year” for the firm, ”with strong financial results across the board in all three regions”.
Pointing to the fact that 50% of the firm’s work had a cross-border element, he added: “Our M&A, capital markets and restructuring and insolvency practices had a particularly strong 2025. Overall, we feel that last year reflects our focus on advising global clients on their most important, complex cross-border matters, and we think we are ideally placed to play to our strengths as a global firm.”
While the firm did not add to its network of 43 offices in 29 countries last year, it secured 51 partner-level lateral hires across its network. The firm has focused on adding teams, with chair Heather McDevitt telling law.com earlier this year that lateral groups can transition more easily, integrate faster and increase client confidence in lateral moves.
Arrivals over the course of 2025 included Jonathan Polkes, who joined from Weil in New York as global litigation co-chair alongside partners Stacy Nettleton and Adam Banks, and a four-partner M&A and shareholder activism group from Cadwalder Wickersham & Taft, also in New York.
Meanwhile in London the firm recruited an IP trio from A&O Shearman led by partner David Stone, who had been global head of IP at legacy Allen & Overy, and a trio of private equity lawyers from Ropes & Gray including partner Helen Croke, one of the best-known names in the City for sponsor advice. It also recruited top tax partners Arun Birla and Jiten Tank from Paul Hastings.
However, while White & Case recorded a 1.7% increase in total lawyers over 2025 to 2,643, total partner count was down 0.7% to 693 and there was a decline of 4.9% in the number of equity partners to 332.
Commenting on the decrease, which followed a 7% drop in the equity partnership in 2024, Brettle noted that partners had left the firm “for a variety of reasons”, adding that a degree of churn was “inevitable” at a large international firm like White & Case.
The firm has grown global revenue by 51%, PEP by 46% and RPL by 29% over the past five years, and is aiming to top $5bn in revenue in 2028. To achieve that, Brettle said the firm was focusing on lateral hiring in the US alongside “global growth areas” like energy and infrastructure, technology and private capital – specifically, sovereign wealth work.
To support its aims last year White & Case formalised its data centre industry group and launched a new global private capital group intended to provide “wraparound” legal services to its private capital clients, among them Macquarie Asset Management, Blackstone and CVC. The group is led out of New York by global head of private equity Oliver Brahmst and London by funds partner Emily Brown and private credit partner Gareth Eagles.
The firm’s M&A team worked on deals worth $284.7bn over the course of 2025, putting it 13th in the London Stock Exchange Group’s legal advisor rankings by deal value. Standout work included advising Cathexis on its $5.8bn sale of data centre developer Yondr and London-listed Deliveroo on its recommended £2.9bn all-cash acquisition by NYSE-listed DoorDash.
On the litigation side White & Case pointed to its successful representation of Toshiba in its defeat of a securities class action and Microsoft in its defeat of a $4.6bn patent suit brought by Corel.
In terms of the outlook for 2026, Brettle said the firm’s January performance was up on 2025, and sentiment was “positive for the year ahead”.
Email your news and story ideas to: [email protected]
