Law firms paid more than $100,000 in a year usually are key firms for a law department. As such, they are also the most likely candidates for alternative billing arrangements and other management initiatives.
Based on some recent benchmarking, for firms paid more then $100,000 in 2004 per billion dollars of 2004 revenue, the range was .4 to 4.8, with the average being 1.8 (median 1.5). Thus, a rule of thumb could be 1 to 2 “major law firms” – paid more than $100,000 – per billion of revenue.