American Lawyer

About American Lawyer

The American Lawyer is a New York-based monthly legal magazine and website covering major law firms, litigation, and the business of law, published by ALM Media. Founded in 1979 by Steven Brill, the magazine revolutionized legal journalism by treating law as a business rather than solely as a profession, pioneering the financial coverage of law firms that is now standard across the industry. Its signature franchises include the Am Law 100 and Am Law 200, annual rankings of American law firms by revenue, profits per partner, and attorney headcount, along with the Corporate Scorecard, the A-List, and the annual American Lawyer Industry Awards. The magazine's website, Law.com, publishes daily headline news of the legal business around the world. Through successive ownership changes, from Brill to Time Warner to Wasserstein & Co. to Incisive Media and back to Wasserstein, and through ALM's 2025 merger with Law Business Research, The American Lawyer has remained the flagship publication of American legal journalism.

Founding by Steven Brill

In 1979, Steven Brill, a Yale Law School graduate who had published his first book, The Teamsters, the previous year, launched The American Lawyer as a monthly magazine covering the business of law firms and lawyers across the United States and around the world. Among its early contributors were Jill Abramson, who would go on to become executive editor of the New York Times, and Jim Cramer, the future CNBC host. Brill's insight was that law firms, despite their professional pretensions, were businesses whose finances, management, and competitive dynamics deserved serious journalistic scrutiny. In 1983, journalist and lawyer Tom Goldstein wrote an in-depth review of the magazine for the Columbia Law Review, observing that following a series of court decisions since 1977 that allowed self-promotion by lawyers, the magazine was the first to treat law as a business rather than solely as a profession. That framing became the magazine's enduring contribution to journalism.

The Am Law 100

The magazine's most influential creation is the Am Law 100, the annual ranking of the top 100 U.S. law firms, which it launched in 1986. The survey ranks firms by number of attorneys, profits per partner, and overall revenue, creating the definitive scorecard of the legal industry's financial performance. The Am Law 200 extends the ranking to the next tier of firms. The rankings transformed how law firms understood themselves: profits per partner became the industry's key prestige metric, driving merger decisions, lateral hiring, and strategic planning across the profession. The annual release of the Am Law 100 is a major event in the legal world, pored over by managing partners, recruiters, and journalists. Companion franchises include "The View From the Top," an annual poll of law firm chairpersons, and the Corporate Scorecard, which tracks firms' performance across practice areas.

Landmark coverage

The American Lawyer made its reputation with aggressive reporting on the business of law, most famously its coverage of the rise and precipitous collapse of the law firm Finley, Kumble, Wagner, Underberg, Manley, Myerson & Casey. The firm's September 1987 cover story, "Bye, Bye, Finley, Kumble," written by Brill himself, chronicled the implosion of what had been one of the country's largest and most aggressive firms, a story that became a cautionary tale for the entire profession. The magazine's willingness to report critically on the institutions that were also its advertisers and sources established its journalistic independence. Over the decades, its investigations into law firm finances, partner compensation, mergers, and management failures have repeatedly set the agenda for the legal industry's conversation about itself.

Ownership history

The American Lawyer's corporate history is as eventful as its journalism. Brill sold ALM to Time Warner in 1997, mainly for its stake in Court TV, the cable network Brill had founded in 1989. That July, Time Warner sold American Lawyer Media's print holdings to Wasserstein Perella & Co., the investment firm of Bruce Wasserstein. In 2001, the company was acquired by Dresdner Bank, then renamed Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, which subsequently merged with Allianz. In 2007, ALM was purchased by Incisive Media for $630 million. In 2014, Wasserstein & Co. led a group of investors that acquired ALM Media from Incisive parent Apax Partners and its creditor Royal Bank of Scotland, returning the company to Wasserstein ownership. In 2015, ALM acquired Summit Professional Networks, and in January 2016 it acquired the British legal magazine Legal Week. In March 2025, ALM merged with Law Business Research, creating a transatlantic legal information giant.

ALM Media

ALM, the magazine's parent company, grew from Brill's single magazine into one of the largest legal media businesses in the world. Its publications include The American Lawyer, The National Law Journal, the New York Law Journal, The Legal Intelligencer, Texas Lawyer, The Recorder, Corporate Counsel, Litigation Daily, Legaltech News, and dozens of other national and regional titles. The company's businesses extend beyond publishing to newsletter production, court verdict and settlement reporting, professional educational seminars, market research, and content distribution. ALM's Law.com network is the web's leading legal news and information service. In May 2025, ALM completed the corporate spin-off of Touchpoint Markets, and in July 2025 Arc Networks acquired that business. Through these transformations, The American Lawyer remained the company's flagship brand and the industry's paper of record.

Industry Awards

The publication sponsors the annual American Lawyer Industry Awards, honoring achievement across the legal profession. The awards recognize law firms, in-house legal departments, and individual lawyers for excellence in areas spanning litigation, dealmaking, innovation, and diversity. The awards dinner brings together the profession's leadership to celebrate the year's outstanding performances, as measured by the same financial and professional standards the magazine's journalism applies. The Industry Awards, along with the A-List ranking of the nation's top firms, extend the magazine's franchise from journalism into the professional community, reinforcing its role as the institution that defines excellence in the business of law.

Digital presence

Law.com, the website of The American Lawyer, publishes daily headline news of the legal business around the world, extending the monthly magazine's franchise to real-time digital journalism. The site covers breaking news on law firm mergers, lateral moves, major litigation, regulatory developments, and the business trends reshaping the profession. The digital operation serves the same professional audience as the print magazine: partners, general counsel, recruiters, and legal journalists who need to stay current on the industry's rapid developments. The combination of the monthly magazine's deep analysis and the website's daily news gives ALM comprehensive coverage of the legal business across all time horizons.

Editorial leadership

The American Lawyer's editors have included some of the most influential figures in legal journalism. David Gialanella serves as editor-in-chief, leading the magazine's coverage of the legal industry's transformation. The magazine's newsroom covers beats spanning Big Law finance, litigation, corporate legal departments, and the business trends affecting firms of all sizes. Its journalists' expertise in the economics of law firms, partner compensation, and industry consolidation gives the publication an authority that general business outlets cannot match. The editorial tradition established by Brill, treating lawyers and firms as subjects of serious business journalism, continues to define the magazine's approach nearly five decades after its founding.

Legacy

The American Lawyer's legacy is the transformation of legal journalism itself. Before Brill's magazine, the business of law was largely opaque, shielded by professional norms against discussing money. By publishing the Am Law 100, investigating firm failures, and reporting on partner compensation, the magazine dragged the economics of law into the open, changing how firms compete, how lawyers choose employers, and how clients evaluate counsel. Steven Brill went on to found Court TV and co-found NewsGuard, but The American Lawyer remains his most enduring journalistic creation: the publication that taught the legal profession to see itself as a business, and taught the public to understand the business of law.