LexisNexis CounselLink Releases 2025 Trends Report

LexisNexis® CounselLink® just released its 2025 Trends Report, now in its 12th year. It shows that average law firm partner rates continued to rise in 2024 at a rate of 5.1%. This increase is the second highest since CounselLink launched its annual Trends Report in 2013. It is slightly below the rate increase documented the year before, 5.4% in 2023, which was the highest on record, indicating a huge spike due to the Pandemic.

The largest law firms, with more than 750 attorneys considered Large Law, continue to command the highest share of wallet in the highest-value practice areas. In 2024, as in 2023, the median partner in the largest law firms billed at a rate that was 61% higher than the median partner in the next tier of firms, confirming a wide rate gap between the largest 100 firms and the next tier of firms.

Large Law continues domination in its share of wallet, particularly in two perceived high-value practice areas that marked exponential increases in median blended average matter rates:

• Mergers & Acquisitions (12.4%)
• Regulatory & Compliance (8.3%).

These two matter categories saw the median blended average matter rate increase more than 5% relative to 2023.

The CounselLink trends report draws on the extensive CounselLink Insight Benchmarking Database of more than $67 billion in legal spending across more than 510,000 timekeepers and more than 1.8 million matters. It provides detailed insights on eight key metrics, including law firm partner fees by firm size, hourly rates by practice area, firm size and location, and a snapshot of hourly rates in 18 countries. Significantly, trends report data comes from actual invoices paid to outside counsel by corporate legal.

Other key findings in the report include:

• Billing rates for top-tier timekeepers in high-value practices are exceptionally high, with some partners charging over $2,300 per hour and high-end associates nearing $2,000 per hour in 2024. While this report emphasizes partner rates as a primary benchmark, it is notable that associate rates in 2024 increased at an even higher rate than partner rates. The average partner rate increase in 2024 in the largest firms was 7.5%. In the largest firms, the average associate rate increase was 10.8%. Associate and of counsel rates have been increasing, on average at a higher rate than partner rates for the last several years.
• Rate increases are highly correlated with practice area rates. Lawyers in practices charging the highest rates in 2024 are generally the same ones who raised their rates the most on a percentage basis year over year.
• Large Law increased market share from 49.0% in 2023 to 49.3% in 2024. Additionally, Large Law increased its share of new matter work in 2024 which may be a leading indicator of a future gain in market share.
• Trends indicate that the adoption of alternative fee arrangements (AFA) within Employment & Labor is growing. In 2024, 28.5% of Employment & Labor matters were billed under an AFA compared to 26.9% in 2023 and 24.7% in 2022. The percentage of Intellectual Property matters billed under an AFA is stable in 2024 compared to 2023.
• The 61% differential for the largest firms vs the next tier of firms is the same as was reported in 2023 but remains the largest gap CounselLink has recorded in the 12 years of tracking the metric. The differential was 46% for 2022 rates relative to 2021.
• This is the first year, 2024, where the median partner rate in the largest tier of firms exceeds $1,000. For firms with 750+ lawyers, the median partner rate in 2024 was 6% higher than the median partner rate in 2023.

Many Ways to Analyze Trends Report Data

There are several relevant data points to consider. As readers review the data and begin to compare it to their legal departments, these points become more salient.
For Large Law firms with the highest market share in the highest-value practice areas, the partner rate at the 90th percentile in 2024 was 8% higher than the partner rate at the 90th percentile in 2023. This point is significant because it says that those partners who already bill at the highest rates (very senior partners in practices such as Mergers & Acquisitions, Regulatory & Compliance, etc.) can raise their rates to an even higher degree than other partners. The market is bearing these rate increases.

On average, partners in firms with 750+ lawyers increased their rates by 7.5%, very similar to the rate change of the median partner. This was the highest average increase of all the firm size categories. Notably, in 2024, some partners billed hourly rates of more than $2,300 per hour. Note that the average is slightly less than what was reported in 2023 (7.9%), which was the highest average increase on record.

Thoughts to Consider

Many organizations are publishing trends reports about high partner rates. We’ve seen an explosion of reports over the last several years. The significant factor for the LexisNexis CounselLink Trends Report after 12 years is how the data is compiled. Using the CounselLink Insights Benchmarking Database, Kris Satkunas, who has authored each annual report, takes actual invoices paid by corporate legal to law firms. The numbers are highly accurate and provide a real snapshot of the status of partner rates in high-value practice areas.

The data begs the questions: What can legal departments do about the rising partner rates, AND do they want to address the issue or continue to pay?

There are several practice areas, detailed in the Trends Report, exploring the benefits of alternative fee arrangements. (You can learn more about them by downloading your copy of the 2025 Trends Report.) Why aren’t more practice area leaders in corporate demanding a fee arrangement? It seems that corporate demand for high-rate partners as outside counsel is not waning. In fact, the largest law firms of 750+ lawyers continue to capitalize on that demand to maintain command of share of wallet.

Benchmarking outside counsel fees within practice areas is a first step in better understanding of where your legal department is positioned with outside counsel hiring and representation. Consider speaking with Kris Satkunas, Director of Strategic Consulting, with LexisNexis CounselLink. Her expertise is in the use of data analysis to inform strategic decision-making. Learn more during a conversation.

The LexisNexis CounselLink 2025 Trends Report: Benchmark Metrics to Empower Legal Cost Management, now in its 12th consecutive year, is available here.