Key points:
- Partner billing rates at the 50 largest US law firms rose 16% on average last year, with some senior partners now billing as much as $3,400 per hour — nearly double the rate that caused an uproar a decade ago.
- At least two partners at Susman Godfrey have set their 2026 rack rate at $4,000 an hour, and one specialist in telecom regulation has told clients he charges $6,000 for compliance consulting.
- General counsel at major corporations are pressing back, but data suggests demand for the most elite practitioners continues to sustain — and justify — the increases.
The going rate for a top partner at one of America's largest law firms has hit $3,400 an hour, according to data from Persuit, a software platform used by corporate legal departments to analyse outside counsel billing. As reported by the ABA Journal, citing an underlying Wall Street Journal investigation, the figure represents a 16% average increase across the 50 biggest firms in a single year — and a near-doubling from the $1,500-an-hour rates that drew widespread criticism just a decade ago.
The increases are not uniform, and the most extreme figures sit at the far end of the distribution. Reuters separately reported that Susman Godfrey partners Bill Carmody and Neal Manne have quietly set their 2026 rack rate at $4,000 an hour, up from $3,000 last year. Eric Troutman, a Southern California partner specialising in telecom regulatory compliance, has informed clients that his rate for consulting work will reach $6,000 an hour — up from $4,200 the year prior. These are outliers, but outliers that are recalibrating expectations across the market.
The drivers are well understood in legal circles: a fiercely competitive lateral market for partner talent, rising firm overhead, and the premium that accrues to lawyers whose names carry genuine transactional or litigation leverage. Kerry McLean, Intuit's general counsel, summed up the dynamic for the Wall Street Journal: "The question is always: Are they worth it? You know, some of these guys are worth it. They understand the industry, they're connected and have a lot of experience."
That calculus is increasingly uncomfortable for in-house teams under pressure to reduce outside counsel spend. Commentary from legal industry observers notes that while clients may grumble, billing rate increases at the top end have consistently held — because the work that demands elite practitioners is also the work where getting it wrong is most costly. The structural result is a two-speed market: commoditised legal work migrating to alternative providers, AI tools and in-house teams, while high-stakes matters continue to flow to an increasingly expensive set of marquee names.
For corporate legal departments benchmarking outside counsel arrangements, the data reinforces the importance of rate review processes, alternative fee structures and matter-level staffing scrutiny. Law firms that cannot articulate the value they deliver at four-figure hourly rates face growing pressure from clients with better data — and more options — than at any point in the recent past.
