Happy Friday!
In New York, the median partner rate was $1,340 on finance and securities work and $475 on real estate. Same city, same role, nearly three times apart.
Averages hide that. The Real Rate Report cuts approved rates by:
-
14 practice areas
-
Eight industry groups
-
Seven US cities in depth
-
Firm size, matter type and years of experience
All 225 pages are an exclusive free download of the 2023 edition for the Legal.io community.
Worth having before your Q4 rate letters land.
The 2025 edition is 20% off for Legal.io members through September 30.
— Pieter Gunst
CEO & Co-Founder, Legal.io
Explore Legal.io Enterprise
An average is a starting point: See where your own firms land against it, and which rates are worth reopening.
📊 Data-Driven Legal
$160B+
The anonymized legal spend in the LegalVIEW warehouse that the Real Rate Report's benchmarks are drawn from.
225
Pages of rate benchmarks and trends in the free edition, including deep dives on seven US cities.
$1,067
Median partner rate on antitrust litigation, against $420 for bankruptcy.
📰 Industry Snapshot
Latham & Watkins buys Nvidia servers to set up in-house AI systems
Some client information is too sensitive to put with any cloud vendor, CIO Rene Mendoza said. Latham has been buying Nvidia H200s for about three years, and the firm says cost savings are not the point.
Clio hires Bridget Mary McCormack
She leaves the CEO job at the American Arbitration Association, and was chief justice of the Michigan Supreme Court before that. Clio put Casetext cofounder Pablo Arredondo on the same judiciary team three weeks ago.
OpenAI introduces new AI model for law firms
Astra for Law runs on a legal search index OpenAI puts at more than 230 million URLs of US case law, statutes and regulations. Cooley, Ropes & Gray and Sullivan & Cromwell built workflows on it before launch.
Inside the SEC's tangled legal battle with LSU and Lane Kiffin
Kiffin kept answering his attorney friend's advice with ChatGPT screenshots, which Tom Mars says were almost always wrong. Mars told him a coach on a $91 million contract ought to have a lawyer on speed dial.
Cooley launches an AI tool that drafts a first S-1 in minutes
Cooley GO Public was built with OpenAI and drafts from the firm's own precedent, with lawyers still on the hook for the filing. Chief innovation officer David Wang says the firm wants to bill for value rather than input.
More from Legal.io
Join our community of 150K+ in-house legal professionals or explore our enterprise platform where you can hire top talent, benchmark outside counsel rates, manage your panel, and more.
- 🚀 Hire Talent - Find the best fit for any legal role.
- 💼 Jobs - Over 7,000 roles live right now.
- 💰 Salaries - Benchmark compensation for legal roles.
