Profits Per Equity Partner 2026: The 20 Most Profitable Law Firms

Last updated: 13 November 2026. US figures are from the 2026 Am Law 100, published by The American Lawyer on 14 April 2026 and covering fiscal 2025. The top 10 are as reported by Above the Law; places 11 to 20 match The American Lawyer’s profits per equity partner table as reproduced by Firm Prospects and Wikipedia, and were checked against firm-level reporting by Law.com, Law360, Legal Business and David Lat’s Original Jurisdiction. UK figures come from the firms’ own results releases and the Global Legal Post. Calculations marked as ours are our own.

Short answer: Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz had the highest profits per equity partner (PEP) in the 2026 Am Law 100, at $12.152 million for 2025, ahead of Kirkland & Ellis ($11.121 million) and Davis Polk ($9.8 million). PEP is net income divided by the number of equity partners. The average across the Am Law 100 rose 14% to $3.59 million.

Key takeaways

• Wachtell became the first firm above $12 million in PEP, up 34.48%. Every firm in the top 20 cleared $5.5 million.
• PEP is an average for equity partners only. Moving partners into a salaried non-equity tier raises it without anyone earning more.
• Weil, Gotshal & Manges ranked 20th at $5.593 million, then lost a run of senior partners and voted on 10 November 2026 to wind down.
• The best-paid UK firms are far behind: Macfarlanes paid £3.1 million and Linklaters £2.48 million, while Slaughter and May and Freshfields do not publish PEP.

Which law firms have the highest profits per equity partner in 2026?

The table ranks the 20 firms with the highest PEP in the 2026 Am Law 100, which reports results for fiscal 2025 (calendar 2025 for almost every firm). We set out to publish 25, but places 21 to 25 sit behind The American Lawyer’s paywall and we could not confirm them from open reporting, so we stopped at 20. For revenue rankings and the wider list, see our breakdown of the Am Law 100 2026.

Sources: places 1 to 10 and their changes from Above the Law’s summary of the 2026 Am Law 100; places 11 to 20 from The American Lawyer’s PEP ranking (paywalled). Cravath’s and Weil’s changes, and the statement that every other top 20 firm grew PEP by double digits, are from David Lat. Dechert’s change is from Law360, Debevoise’s and Sidley’s from Law.com headlines. “About” means the change was reported rounded.

A few things stand out. Wachtell and Cravath are relatively small firms centred on New York. Kirkland is the opposite: it had 595 equity partners in 2025 according to the Global Legal Post, yet still averaged more than $11 million each. On our arithmetic, that puts Kirkland’s net income at roughly $6.6 billion. Only Cravath and Weil grew PEP by less than 10%, at a time when US inflation was about 2.7%. The firms in the table are also the most active on the biggest deals, which you can follow firm by firm on DealDatabase.

How is profits per equity partner calculated?

The formula is simple:

PEP = net income ÷ number of equity partners

In The American Lawyer’s definitions, net income is the total pot available to equity partners after the firm has paid associates, staff, rent, technology and the salaries of non-equity partners. The equity partner count is the number of partners who share in that profit rather than drawing a fixed salary. Gross revenue is fee income from legal work, leaving out disbursements.

Three points are easy to miss:

• It is an average. A firm with $7 million PEP may pay its top rainmakers $20 million or more and its newest equity partners a fraction of that. Firms with a modified lockstep, where pay rises with seniority, have a narrower spread than firms that pay on individual performance.
• It is mostly self-reported. Am Law figures are not audited accounts. Firms supply them voluntarily, and The American Lawyer estimates for firms that decline.
• It ignores capital. Equity partners usually have to contribute capital and carry personal tax on their share. PEP is a pre-tax figure.

Our explainer on the law firm hierarchy sets out where equity and non-equity partners sit relative to counsel and associates.

Why does PEP matter so much to law firms?

PEP is the number partners use to judge whether they are at the right firm, so it drives the market for lateral hires. A partner with a large book of business who is earning $4 million at one firm can see from the Am Law tables that peers with similar practices average $8 million elsewhere. Recruiters lead with PEP, and rival firms quote it in pitches.

That makes the ranking self-reinforcing. Firms with high PEP can offer more to lateral stars, who bring clients and revenue, which pushes PEP higher. Firms that slip down the table find it harder to keep their best earners. Clients pay attention too, because a firm whose partners are leaving may not be able to staff a long case or deal.

Weil Gotshal is the 2026 example. In David Lat’s analysis, Weil’s PEP rose from $4.028 million in 2019 to $5.593 million in 2025, but its peers grew much faster: it fell from ninth on PEP in the 2020 Am Law 100 to 20th in 2026. During 2026 dozens of partners left, including M&A partner Michael Aiello and five transactional partners who moved to Cravath. Weil’s management committee recommended an orderly wind-down on 28 October 2026, and partners approved it with about 97% support on 10 November, Bloomberg Law reported. A firm with $2 billion in revenue and PEP above $5 million is still wealthy by any normal measure. The lesson is that partners compare themselves with the firms around them, not with the wider economy.

PEP also shapes pay further down. Firms at the top of the table set the associate scale that others follow, as our guide to first-year associate salaries in 2026 shows.

How do non-equity partners distort PEP?

Because PEP divides by equity partners only, a firm can raise it by shrinking the equity group. A simple worked example (our own, with round numbers):

• A firm has $1 billion of net income and 200 equity partners. PEP is $5 million.
• It moves 40 partners into a non-equity tier and pays each a $1 million salary. That salary is now a cost, so net income falls to $960 million.
• The remaining 160 equity partners share $960 million. PEP rises to $6 million, a 20% jump, though the firm earned nothing extra.

This is happening across Big Law. Lat’s analysis of the 2026 Am Law 100 found that non-equity partner numbers rose by almost 7% in 2025, while equity partners grew by only 2%. Bloomberg Law reported in 2025 that the largest firms could have more non-equity than equity partners by the end of that year. Cravath introduced a non-equity tier in November 2023, Above the Law has listed Paul Weiss, WilmerHale and Cleary among the firms that have created or considered one since, and Freshfields added one for the first time in 2026, according to the Irish Times.

Ropes & Gray is the main holdout. It told The American Lawyer in September 2025 that it would keep its single-tier, all-equity partnership for now. On an all-equity model, every partner is in the denominator, so its $7.047 million figure is harder to inflate than that of a two-tier firm with similar profits.

The practical advice for anyone comparing firms is to look at profit per lawyer and revenue per lawyer alongside PEP. Those measures divide by everyone and are much harder to move by reclassifying partners. Wachtell, for example, leads on revenue per lawyer at $5.085 million as well as on PEP. Our guide to how much lawyers make puts these partner figures in the context of the wider profession.

What do UK law firms make per equity partner?

UK firms mostly report for the year to 30 April and publish PEP in sterling. Even the strongest are well short of the US top 20.

Sources: Clifford Chance’s results release of 22 July 2026, A&O Shearman’s release of 16 July 2026, Linklaters’ FY26 release and the Global Legal Post for Macfarlanes.

Two magic circle firms are missing. Freshfields stopped releasing figures in 2023, when its PEP was £2.09 million; the Irish Times reports a Law.com estimate of $2.9 million for 2024. Slaughter and May is a traditional partnership rather than an LLP and does not publish its numbers. The Financial Times estimated in November 2024 that its PEP was pushing £4 million, as Legal Cheek reported, but the firm has not confirmed any figure.

For firms that are LLPs, there is a partial check. Under paragraph 66 of Schedule 1 to the LLP accounts regulations, accounts filed at Companies House must show the average number of members and, where profits exceed £200,000, the profit of the member with the largest entitlement. Those filings cover all members, not just equity partners, and arrive months after the year end. That is why UK PEP reporting relies on firm announcements and on Legal Business, The Lawyer and Law.com International.

The dollar figures make the gap plain. Clifford Chance’s $3.1 million is about half of Weil’s PEP and a quarter of Wachtell’s. The full list of UK firms by turnover is in our ranking of UK law firms by revenue, and our review of the HSF Kramer merger one year on shows how transatlantic combinations are trying to close it.

What should you read into the 2026 numbers?

2025 was an exceptional year for the largest US firms. Above the Law reported that 70 Am Law 100 firms increased PEP by at least 10%, and only two saw it fall. Higher billing rates and stronger demand for deal and disputes work drove most of the gain.

Three cautions apply. First, PEP measures the year just gone, so it says little about whether a firm can hold its partners next year, as Weil showed. Second, a rising PEP can reflect fewer equity partners rather than more profit, so check the equity headcount where a firm discloses it. Third, mergers will scramble next year’s comparisons: Hogan Lovells Cadwalader, Ashurst Perkins Coie and Winston Taylor all completed in 2026. Our piece on the Hogan Lovells Cadwalader merger covers the first of those.

Frequently asked questions

What is profits per equity partner?

Profits per equity partner, or PEP, is a law firm’s net income divided by the number of equity partners who share in that profit. It is the standard measure of partner pay in law firm rankings, but it is an average, so individual partners may earn much more or much less.

Which law firm has the highest profits per partner in 2026?

Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, with PEP of $12.152 million for 2025 in the 2026 Am Law 100. Kirkland & Ellis was second at $11.121 million and Davis Polk third at $9.8 million.

What is the difference between profits per partner and profits per equity partner?

Profits per equity partner divides net income only by partners who own a share of the firm. A profits per partner figure that includes salaried non-equity partners in the count will be lower. Most rankings, including the Am Law 100, now use PEP.

What is the average profits per equity partner in the Am Law 100?

The average was $3.59 million for 2025, up 14% on the previous year, according to the 2026 Am Law 100. Every firm in the top 20 was above $5.5 million, so the average hides a wide spread.

Why does Slaughter and May not publish its profits?

Slaughter and May is a traditional partnership rather than a limited liability partnership, so it does not have to file accounts at Companies House, and it chooses not to release figures. The Financial Times estimated in 2024 that its PEP was close to £4 million.

Do non-equity partners count in PEP?

No. Non-equity partners are paid a salary that is treated as a cost before net income is worked out, and they are left out of the partner count. That is why creating or growing a non-equity tier tends to push PEP up.

This article is general information about law firm finances based on published rankings and firm announcements as of 13 November 2026. Am Law figures are largely self-reported and unaudited, and some UK figures are estimates; it is not financial, legal or career advice.