$147 billion is a big old number. It's the combined income of the world's biggest 100 law firms, the Global 100, whose aggregate revenue grew nearly 15.3% in 2021. In short, the world's biggest 100 have never been bigger.

I'm Krishnan Nair, Deputy Editor at Law.com International, bringing you this week's edition of The Global Lawyer—our weekly summary of the major news and trends affecting the global legal industry.

It's a Good Time to be an Equity Partner

Topping out the rankings by revenue, Kirkland & Ellis remains the only $6 billion law firm in the world, leading Latham & Watkins which drew nearly $5.5 billion in 2021.

The 2022 Global 200 Ranked by Revenue

But bigger is not always better. Perhaps a more significant number in the minds of senior lawyers is $2.2 million. That's the average profit per equity partner across the top 100—and it swelled 17% in the last financial year. As our intelligence man James Willer put it modestly in our new Global 200 webinar last week, it's been "another very good year to be an equity partner at the world's largest law firms".

The Global 200 as a whole performed extraordinarily well. But aggregate sums often belie the huge disparities within. For instance, the Global 100 accounts for nearly 80% of the Global 200's overall revenue, which stands at $185.6 billion. This owes largely to the fact that the Global 100 continues to outperform the second hundred, which itself grew by a respectable 12.6%.

Nowhere is this disparity more apparent than when comparing PEP...

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