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BTI SUPER LISTENER A-TEAM 2026

Super Listening – The Ultimate Business Development Skill

Every winning business development behavior begins with the same trigger: an attorney listening beyond the words.

This is the holy grail of business development. The best business developers know this – and live by it.

Super Listening is only 1 of the 6 pivotal behaviors separating the elite business developers from the rest. This exclusive report lays out these 6 pivotal business development activities and:

  • How clients define these behaviors
  • The firms clients name as best at each one

BTI Super Listener A-Team 2026: Clients Rank Law Firms Best at Business Development details specific actions your attorneys can take to deliver on the business development driving the biggest and most strategic wins.

What is Super Listening?

Super Listening – a rare and high-octane skill enabling the listener to:

  • Ask questions to help catalyze client thinking – as well as their own
  • Listen to what clients are saying
  • Hear what they’re not saying
  • Make sense of the questions, comments, silences, points of
    agreement – and disagreement

But this is just the start – Super Listening is only 1 of the 6 pivotal behaviors separating the elite business developers from the rest:

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The BTI Super Listener Matrix

The best business developers use these crucial skills and behaviors to position themselves to be the go-to source when new needs arise

Otherwise – the potential work gets tossed out to law firms to fight over

How to Use the BTI Super Listener Business Development Matrix

BTI’s exclusive research shows legal decision makers measure business development along 2 key dimensions:

  • The trust they build
  • The value they deliver

Top business developers know how to build both simultaneously – all based on Super Listening.

The BTI Super Listener 40

Clients identify and rank the Best of the Best in Super Listening, and explain why – with no prompts or suggestions. Each firm earns their performance the hard way: by delivering the best.

1. Latham & Watkins

2. King & Spalding

3. Jones Day

4. Ropes & Gray

5. Kirkland & Ellis

6. Gibson Dunn

7. Littler

8. Cooley

9. Sidley

10. DLA Piper

11. Perkins Coie

12. Hogan Lovells

13. Skadden

14. Ogletree Deakins

15. Venable

16. Wilson Sonsini

17. Greenberg Traurig

18. Arnold & Porter

19. Morgan Lewis

20. Morrison & Foerster

21. Faegre Drinker

22. FBT Gibbons

23. Husch Blackwell

24. Covington

25. Orrick

26. Reed Smith

27. Seyfarth

28. Troutman Pepper Locke

29. Holland & Hart

30. Sullivan & Cromwell

31. Quinn Emanuel

32. McDermott Will & Schulte

33. Fried Frank

34. Eversheds Sutherland

35. Debevoise

36. McGuireWoods

37. Goodwin

38. Jackson Lewis

39. Alston & Bird

40. Holland & Knight

BTI Super Listener A-Team 2026 Law Firms

A
  • A&O Shearman
  • Ahmad, Zavitsanos & Mensing
  • Akerman
  • Akin
  • Alston & Bird
  • ArentFox Schiff
  • Arnall Golden Gregory
  • Arnold & Porter
  • Atkinson, Andelson, Loya, Ruud & Romo
  • Axinn
B
  • Baird Holm
  • Baker Botts
  • Baker Donelson
  • Baker McKenzie
  • BakerHostetler
  • Ballard Spahr
  • Barnes & Thornburg
  • Barron & Newburger
  • Bartlit Beck
  • Benesch
  • Berliner Corcoran & Rowe
  • Bird & Bird
  • Blakes
  • Blank Rome
  • Boies Schiller Flexner
  • Bondurant Mixson & Elmore
  • Bose McKinney & Evans
  • Bradley
  • Bricker Graydon
  • Brown Rudnick
  • Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner
  • Buchanan
  • Burke, Warren, MacKay & Serritella
  • Burns White
  • Burr & Forman
  • Butler Snow
  • Butzel Long
C
  • Cadwalader
  • Cahill
  • Calfee
  • Carlton Fields
  • Carpenter Lipps
  • Chapman and Cutler
  • Choate
  • Clark Hill
  • Cleary Gottlieb
  • Clifford Chance
  • Coblentz Patch Duffy & Bass
  • Cole, Scott & Kissane
  • Constangy
  • Cooley
  • Covington
  • Cowan Liebowitz & Latman
  • Cozen O’Connor
  • Cravath
  • Crowell
  • Crowley Fleck
D
  • Davis Polk
  • Davis Wright Tremaine
  • Debevoise
  • Dechert
  • Dentons
  • Desmarais
  • Dinsmore
  • DLA Piper
  • Dorsey
  • Duane Morris
  • Dykema
E
  • Eimer Stahl
  • Epstein Becker Green
  • Eversheds Sutherland
F
  • Faegre Drinker
  • Fasken
  • FBT Gibbons
  • Fenwick & West
  • FieldFisher
  • Finnegan
  • Fish
  • Fisher Phillips
  • FisherBroyles
  • Fitch Even
  • Foley & Lardner
  • Foley Hoag
  • FordHarrison
  • Forman Watkins & Krutz
  • Fox Rothschild
  • Fragomen
  • Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz
  • Frantz Ward
  • Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer
  • Fried Frank
G
  • Germer
  • Gibson Dunn
  • Godfrey & Kahn
  • Goldman Ismail Tomaselli Brennan & Baum
  • Goodwin
  • Gordon Rees Scully Mansukhani
  • Gray Reed
  • Greenberg Glusker
  • Greenberg Traurig
  • Groom Law Group
  • Grünecker
  • Gunderson Dettmer
H
  • Hall Render
  • Harness IP
  • Harris Beach
  • Haynes and Boone
  • Herrick
  • Hill Ward Henderson
  • Hinshaw
  • Hodgson Russ
  • Hogan Lovells
  • Holland & Hart
  • Holland & Knight
  • Hollingsworth
  • Honigman
  • Hudson Cook
  • Hueston Hennigan
  • Hughes Hubbard & Reed
  • Hunton Andrews Kurth
  • Husch Blackwell
  • Hyman, Phelps & McNamara
I
  • Ice Miller
  • Irell & Manella
J
  • Jackson Lewis
  • Jackson Walker
  • Jenner & Block
  • Jones Day
  • Jones Walker
K
  • K&L Gates
  • Kasowitz
  • Katten
  • Kaufman Borgeest & Ryan
  • Kelley Drye
  • Kightlinger & Gray
  • Kilpatrick
  • King & Spalding
  • Kirkland & Ellis
  • Knobbe Martens
  • Kullman
  • Kutak Rock
L
  • Latham & Watkins
  • Leech Tishman
  • Lewis Brisbois
  • Linklaters
  • Lippes Mathias
  • Littler
  • Locke Lord
  • Loeb & Loeb
M
  • Manatt
  • Maschoff Brennan
  • Mayer Brown
  • Maynard Nexsen
  • McAngus Goudelock & Courie
  • McCarter & English
  • McDermott Will & Schulte
  • McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff
  • McGuireWoods
  • McKool Smith
  • McLane Middleton
  • McMillan
  • Messner Reeves
  • Metz Lewis Brodman Must O’Keefe
  • Michael Best
  • Milbank
  • Miller & Chevalier
  • Mintz
  • Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp
  • Mitchell Williams
  • Morgan Lewis
  • Morrison & Foerster
  • Much
  • Munger, Tolles & Olson
N
  • Nelson Mullins
  • Nicolaides
  • Nixon Peabody
  • Norton Rose Fulbright
O
  • Oblon
  • Ogletree Deakins
  • O'Melveny
  • Orrick
  • Osborne Clarke
P
  • Parker Poe
  • Parsons Behle & Latimer
  • Patterson Belknap
  • Paul Hastings
  • Paul, Weiss
  • Perkins Coie
  • Phelps Dunbar
  • Pillsbury
  • Polsinelli
  • Porter Wright
  • Post & Schell
  • Poyner Spruill
  • Proskauer
  • Pryor Cashman
Q
  • Quarles
  • Quinn Emanuel
  • Quintairos, Prieto, Wood & Boyer
R
  • Reed Smith
  • Reminger
  • Riley Safer Holmes & Cancila
  • Robins Kaplan
  • Ropes & Gray
S
  • Saul Ewing
  • Scott+Scott
  • Seyfarth
  • Sheppard Mullin
  • Shipman & Goodwin
  • Shook, Hardy & Bacon
  • Sidley
  • Simmons & Simmons
  • Skadden
  • Smith Anderson
  • Snell & Wilmer
  • Steptoe
  • Sterne Kessler
  • Stoel Rives
  • Stradley Ronon
  • Sullivan & Cromwell
  • Susman Godfrey
  • Swanson, Martin & Bell
T
  • Taft
  • Taylor Wessing
  • Thompson Coburn
  • Thompson Coe
  • Thompson Hine
  • Troutman Pepper Locke
U
  • UB Greensfelder
V
  • Vedder Price
  • Venable
  • Vinson & Elkins
W
  • Wachtell Lipton
  • Warner Norcross + Judd
  • Weil
  • Wheeler Trigg O’Donnell
  • White & Case
  • Wiley
  • Willcox Savage
  • Williams & Connolly
  • Williams Mullen
  • Willkie
  • WilmerHale
  • Wilson Elser
  • Wilson Sonsini
  • Windels Marx
  • Winstead
  • Winston & Strawn
  • Womble Bond Dickinson
  • Wood Smith Henning & Berman
  • Woods Rogers
Z
  • ZwillGen

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Compare Your Performance Against 8 Competitors of Your Choice

Or, we can tell you who clients say you compete with and compare your firm to this group – you are likely to be surprised.

This insightful, custom analysis is included in the price of your report.

Methodology

BTI Super Listener A-Team 2026 draws on data collected in BTI’s ongoing Annual Survey of General Counsel.

This research is independent and unbiased – no law firm or organization other than BTI sponsors this study.

Each year, BTI reaches out to a strategically designed group of top legal decision makers at large organizations with $1billion or more in revenue. We target the decision makers in the industries who spend the most on legal affairs as well as thought leaders and innovative Chief Legal Officers. Our survey also includes Chief Legal Operating Officers and business executives who hire and influence the selection and hiring of law firms.

We grant interviewees confidentiality at the individual and organizational level.

Executive Summary

BTI Super Listener A-Team 2026 is your guide to business development excellence.

Super Listeners pick up on pauses, hesitations, shifts in tone – and understand what it all means. Nothing beats these activities for developing new business. The best business developers know this – and live by it.

This exclusive report lays out how clients define these behaviors – and the firms clients name as best at each one.

For a more in-depth look at the BTI Super Listener A-Team 2026, download a complimentary copy of the executive summary or reach out to BTI Consulting with any questions.

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