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 course of 2025, the average rate of Partner attrition across the AM Law 100 rose slightly from 6% to 8%. 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 That Have Improved Their Partner Attrition
A few AM Law 100 firms saw big improvements in Partner attrition in 2025.
BCLP had the largest drop in attrition, falling from 14% 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.
Akin and
Milbank made similar improvements, both firms lowered Partner attrition from
11% to
6% in 2025.
Has There Been Any Politically-Affiliated Attrition?
While exact causation is difficult to prove, some of the firms with the highest increases in Partner attrition were caught up in the US administration's targeting of law firms in early 2025.
As
Bloomberg Law reported, 4 firms fought the executive orders placed against them, while 9 firms reached settlements in which they promised to provide a total of $940 million in pro bono legal services. A sample of the firms involved shows that most of them saw seen Partner attrition increase in 2025 (compared to 2024).
Which Practice Groups Have Seen the Highest Rates of Partner Attrition?
Relative to total AM Law Partner headcount, Insurance (18%) has the highest attrition rate of any major practice group. It's also the only practice group with above average attrition (15%).
So if you're recruiting for your firm's Insurance practice, you're facing some of the highest Partner attrition rates in the industry.
Which Cities Have Seen the Highest Rates of Partner Attrition?
Texas appears to be the trickiest state to retain talent, with both Houston (19%) and Dallas (17%) recording the highest rate of AM Law Partner attrition between Jan 2024 - Dec 2025.
Among other large legal markets in the US, the
Bay Area (17%),
Los Angeles (16%), and
Chicago (16%) all had a higher than average rate of attrition over the same 24-month period.
Note on methodology
Source: Publicly-available data tracked by Pirical Legal Professionals (PLP)
Timeframe: Jan 2024 - Dec 2025
Attrition Rate % = (Number of Partner exits) ÷ (Average Partner headcount for the timeframe) × 100
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.
Stay up-to-date with the latest market insights and law firm rankings
Subscribe to email updates
Subscribe to content
