BigLaw’s Sonic Boom And The Definitive Ranking of Law Firm Names That Actually Slap
Tom Borman, LawFuel writer
Let’s be honest: when you’re picking a law firm, the first thing you care about is whether the name sounds like it could crush your enemies in court… or whether it sounds like the accountant your mum trusts with her church raffle money.
Turns out the internet has opinions. Strong ones. A gloriously unhinged Reddit thread recently ranked BigLaw firms not by revenue, not by PPP, not by how many Supreme Court clerks they hoover up, but purely by how the names roll off the tongue. And honestly? It’s the most fun we’ve had reading anything that contains the phrase “Cravath, Swaine & Moore” in years.
Does a name that sounds like a 19th-century private detective agency (looking at you, White & Case) actually win more cases than one that sounds like a mid-tier butcher (Faegre Drinker)? Probably not.
But will partners still get mildly offended when their venerable institution lands in “Unfortunate” instead of “Epic”? You better believe it.
So grab a coffee (or something stronger if your firm appears next to “Sounds like food”) and enjoy the definitive, completely scientific ranking of law firm names by pure sonic vibe.
The Best-Sounding Law Firm Names
Look, we get it. Law firm names are usually a roll call of dead white guys who probably wore a lot of waistcoats. Some are short. Some are comically long. And some sound like they should be selling artisanal sausages instead of billing $1,400 an hour.
But one brave soul on Reddit decided prestige, profits per partner, and Vault rankings are all well and good.
What we really need is a tier list based purely on how the names sound. Naturally, the internet delivered. We’ve cleaned it up, kept the original savage category headings, and present it here for your enjoyment (and/or mortal offence).
Ranking BigLaw firms by how their names actually sound
Epic – Blank Rome Ice Miller McKool Smith MoFo HayBoo Slaughter & May
Old-timey prestige – King & Spalding Locke Lord Holland & Knight Squire Patton Boggs Covington & Burling Cadwalader, Wickersham, & Taft Cravath, Swaine & Moore Paul Hastings Sullivan & Cromwell Simpson Thacher & Bartlett Clifford Chance Fox Rothschild
Detective agencies – White & Case Ropes & Gray Winston & Strawn Latham & Watkins Vinson & Elkins Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher Willkie Farr & Gallagher Alston & Bird O’Melveny & Myers
Generic white male Baker McKenzie Kirkland & Ellis Davis Polk McDermott Will & Emery Sidley Austin WilmerHale Reed Smith Jones Day Arnold & Porter
Long and whacky – Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen & Loewy Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart Gunderson Dettmer Stough Villeneuve Franklin & Hachigian
Sounds like food – Fried Frank Freshfields Mintz Baker Botts Troutman Pepper Fish & Richardson Polsinelli Mayer Brown Kellogg Hansen Pillsbury Winthrop Faegre Drinker Shook Hardy & Bacon
This is a law firm? – DLA Piper, Orrick, Milbank, Venable , Goodwin Procter, McGuireWoods, Linklaters
Unfortunate – Weil, Gotshal & Manges, Dechert, Cooley Foley & Lardner, Foley Hoag, Allen & Overy, Ballard Spahr, Choate, Selendy Gay, Steptoe
There you have it: objective truth, as decided by anonymous strangers at 2 a.m. Your move, branding committee.
