Barbara Becker of Gibson Dunn, Deborah Chang of Chang | Klein and Athea Trial Lawyers, and Ishan Bhabha of Jenner & Block.
Deborah Chang had achieved more success as a plaintiff lawyer than she could ever have imagined. She won millions for individuals who suffered horrific harms while winning systemic reforms.
As a leader for women lawyers, she was inspired to ask how she could do more. She left her prestigious and lucrative partnership at Panish Shea in Los Angeles – and formed not one firm, but two: Chang|Klein as well as Athea Trial Lawyers, a collective who’s who of top female trial lawyers banding together to take on the toughest cases, while still largely running their own firms.
Barbara Becker, also, thought she could make a difference for one of the nation’s most elite law firms, Gibson Dunn. A top dealmaker, she had founded the firm’s diversity committee and notched success both as an internal voice for change and as an exquisite M&A lawyer. In 2021, she became the firm’s first female chair and managing partner.
Chang and Becker are two of the 31 female law firm leaders we are honored to recognize in The 2025 Lawdragon 100 Managing Partners You Need to Know.
This guide is caught in a moment in which the focus on law firms has never been more intense, with headline debate on the purpose, profit and prospects of the nation’s most high-profile corporate law firms. Many of their leaders are included here, alongside representatives from firms large and small, corporate and litigation, plaintiff and defense, all selected for their roles founding, growing, leading and innovating on behalf of a legal enterprise seeking change, profit, to be a home, a voice.
Some are an Xbox, others more Atari. But all are dedicated to one of the hardest roles a lawyer can take on: professionally herding lawyers and shaping their passions and skills into a successful outcome for a client.
The task is made infinitely more complex by the tsunami of a world-class revenge tour lasered on the business end of a profession that still meanders into politics and social change while operating as the legal equivalent of a hedge fund.
Washington, D.C. litigation partner Ishan Bhabha was selected as Jenner co-managing partner last year, and now is tasked alongside Energy and Corporate lawyer Randy Mehrberg with guiding the firm through its high-profile duel.
The leaders of America’s ultra-firms are often lavished with praise; we recognize the founders, chairs and managing partners of 15 of the most successful, as defined by monetary achievement, here. They typically generate more than $1B a year in revenue (a mark achieved by more than 60 U.S. firms) while surpassing $5M a year in profits per partner.
Topping the list is Kirkland chairman, Jon Ballis, whose revenue was more than $8B last year, $101M of it alone from Blackstone. The top firm in profits per partner, in 2023, was Wachtell, with a mark of $8.5M for its 90 equity partners. No firm has been as meteoric or acquisitive in the past decade as Paul, Weiss under Chairman Brad Karp, who took the reins in 2008 amidst his defense of the NFL in concussion litigation. Karp was best known for transforming Paul Weiss into one of the nation’s most admired and profitable before Trump’s “target the lawyers” campaign took hold.
Should firms be businesses? How to balance being an employer with any duty to the legal system? Is a settlement a price to pay or a bending of the knee? Whither a duty to firm, country or commerce? Karp’s settlement – facilitated by Sullivan & Cromwell and Quinn Emanuel partners included here – with the president has been followed by a growing string of preemptive settlements by fellow ultra-firm leaders to the tune of howls from throughout the legal profession and firm associates. Also included here are leaders from Jenner and WilmerHale, who are fighting their censures to great acclaim.
Everyone has an opinion, but it’s the lawyers recognized here and their fellow leaders on the line. Dallas to D.C., New York to Nashville; a managing partner who built one firm, sold it to a global behemoth, and came back for round two; a managing partner who successfully argued a $400M state Supreme Court case the day he co-founded his law firm; a Sikh lawyer who immigrated to the U.S. at the age of 8 and now leads one of the nation’s most elite firms; the co-managing partners who took the reins of the nation’s two leading litigation firms and helped them soar even higher.
Among the great joys of researching this guide are the submissions from firms of all stripes and the innovation, focus and drive lawyers bring to their firms. We appreciate the excellent submissions, which we paired with our journalistic research and an obsession with law firms to create this guide. We first published it in 2008, and the changes in the face of these leaders is refreshing. Their machines are human, their capital can walk out the door. Yet when combined in new ways, worlds, causes and commerce can all be conquered.
A special recognition to some enduring leaders, who were recognized as well in our inaugural guide: Steven Fineman of Lieff Cabraser, Regina Pisa of Goodwin Procter, Quinn, Karp, and Stuart Liner, now of Liner Freedman.
Honorees with an asterisk are members of our esteemed Hall of Fame.
