DRAFT: AM Law 100 Partner Attrition: Which Firms Have Been Losing The Most Partners?
Partner attrition can be a key metric of a firm's stability, providing an insight into which firms are effectively growing and retaining talent.
Over the past 12 months, the average rate of Partner attrition across the AM Law 100 rose slightly from 6.1% to 7.3%. So are firms across the board struggling to keep hold of Partners or are a few firms in particular causing this spike?
Using publicly-available data tracked by Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP), we've analysed how Partner attrition compares across the AM Law 100.
Note on methodology: data is derived from tracked Partner exits, numbers may be slightly incomplete due to limited public information. Exits include Partners that left but didn't lateral to another firm, eg. retired.
Ranked: which AM Law 100 firms have had the highest recent Partner attrition rates?
Firms Reversing their Attrition Trend
A few AM Law 100 firms saw big improvements in Partner attrition over the past 12 months.
BCLP had the largest drop in attrition, falling from
15% to
9%.
Hunton Andrews Kurth also saw major gains, with attrition nearly halving to
4% - a change that coincides with the firm’s introduction of a non-equity Partner tier, designed to help retain & attract senior talent.
Vinson & Elkins followed a similar path, dropping from
14% to
9%, while Paul Hastings and Sidley Austin also saw reductions, both cutting attrition by over 4 percentage points.
Which practice groups have seen the highest rates of Partner attrition?
Relative to the total AM Law Partner headcount, Insurance has the highest attrition rate of any practice group.
Which cities have seen the highest rates of Partner attrition?
Although New York City accounted for roughly 19% of all Partner firm moves between Oct 23 and Oct 25, the picture shifts when attrition is measured relative to each city’s total Partner headcount.
Among firms based in major US legal markets, Houston recorded the highest attrition rate over the 24-month period at 18%, followed by San Francisco (16%) and Dallas (15%). Despite its large number of exits, New York City ranked seventh among the ten largest Partner markets (each with over 1,000 Partners), with an attrition rate of 14%.
Note on methodology
Source: Publicly-available data tracked by Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP)
Excludes: x
Timeframe: Sep 2023 - Sep 2025
Data is derived from tracked Partner exits, numbers may be slightly incomplete due to limited public information. Exits include Partners that left but didn't lateral to another firm, eg. retired.
Analysis powered by Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP)
Pirical Legal Professionals is the largest attorney database built with the most comprehensive data on the market. Specifically designed for legal recruitment and legal market research.
Pirical seamlessly aggregates data from a wide range of public sources, tracking over 700,000 attorney profiles worldwide. Our data helps law firms source lateral talent quicker, identify candidates with key client relationships, map competitor firm strategies & team structures, and much more.
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