Something strange is happening in Big Law. Managing partners have apparently discovered the secret to happiness.

BTI’s latest research, conducted with internationally recognized law firm consultant Patrick McKenna, reveals 84.9% of managing partners love and enjoy their work. Just two years ago, it was 44.6%.

Almost twice as many managing partners are enjoying their jobs.

Wow. Really? AI is rewriting the business model. Clients want more for less. The war for talent is brutal. Partners want bigger paychecks. And the people running these firms are smiling?

Finally, permission to lead

Managing partners have long had one of the toughest jobs in business: leading hundreds of smart, powerful people who prize their independence.

Every big decision needs consensus. Every change threatens someone’s pay, turf, or favorite way of doing things.

But disruption is changing the rules.

AI demands investment. Clients demand speed. Competitors demand a response. Nobody has 18 months to build consensus anymore.

Managing partners may finally have what they’ve wanted for years: Permission to lead.

Fix compensation. Demand accountability. Invest big. Slaughter sacred cows. Make the calls everyone else ducked.

Maybe this helps explain why they’re happier.

Now the catch

Managing partners may be gaining more authority just as their partners are gaining more power to walk away.

Unhappy partners don’t need to vote against leadership. They vote with their feet. And with rivals flush with cash and hungry for talent, those feet can move fast.

The biggest risk for a managing partner may no longer be making an unpopular decision. It’s discovering the partnership has made its own decisions first.

What about the clients?

All the merger chatter focuses on partners, profits, and prestige. Meanwhile, clients are left wondering whether the lawyers handling their most consequential matters will still be there next quarter.

Clients don’t need their law firms to be happy. They need them to be stable. And leadership turmoil introduces a whole new category of risk. Corporate counsel have three questions worth asking:

• How many of my lawyers already have one foot out the door?
• Who’s actually running this firm – leadership or the rainmakers?
• Is my matter still the priority, or has keeping the firm together become priority number one?

Turbulence doesn’t doom a firm. Some emerge stronger. But clients deserve straight answers before their lead partner’s farewell email lands in the inbox.

Big Law’s new leadership paradox: More authority at the top. More exit power everywhere else.

Managing partners may finally have the freedom to lead. But freedom to lead isn’t the same as the ability to keep everyone following.

And their partners have never had more freedom to leave.

Clients are watching both.

Budget submittals are a bit like proposing marriage with a spreadsheet instead of a ring. You can prove the numbers work. You can demonstrate the upside. You can even quantify the risks. But nobody ever fell in love with an ROI calculation.

And nobody ever funded a bold new business development initiative because the spreadsheet was perfect. It takes a whole different approach: a passionate plea.

Your emotion, enthusiasm, and confidence can crush any numbers you offer.

One long-time CMO and client had asked for funding for industry teams for 3 straight years. A lot of discussion and questions about how it would work and who would lead it – all leading to 3 polite rejections.

In year 4, she stood before the firm’s 3 most senior leaders and declared:

“If this doesn’t increase new business, you can keep my bonus. I won’t even want it.”

She got funded. She got her bonus. And the firm now has 6 industry teams, each with its own robust budget. And yes – growth exceeded expectations.

Another client and CMO wanted to launch a client feedback program. The management committee debated the idea, with a few loud doubters questioning the need. They already knew their clients. What could they possibly learn?

After endless questions about why, what could go wrong, and whether the investment was worth it, the CMO stood up and said:

“If there isn’t at least one surprise that shocks each of you when this is over – I will quit. You won’t have to say a word to me about it.”

The managing partner immediately stepped in and said the promise wouldn’t be necessary. The committee approved the request – with one holdout.

As the project unfolded, the holdout reviewed the client feedback transcripts. He promptly requested feedback from his own largest client. Then he wanted feedback from every member of the in-house legal department at his largest client. He went from the loudest skeptic to one of the biggest believers.

Here’s the part neither CMO expected.

Both managing partners later told me the threats meant almost nothing. It was the passion.

After sitting through endless budget requests filled with predictable benefits, optimistic projections, and carefully calculated ROI, they finally encountered someone willing to put something personal on the line.

They weren’t buying a project. They were buying belief.

Most budget requests try to make the decision feel safe. These CMOs did the opposite. They made the decision feel important. And they made doing nothing feel like the bigger risk.

There’s another payoff. Once leadership sees someone take a stand with such conviction, the rest of their requests start getting a less jaundiced look. Credibility spills over.

You don’t have to threaten to quit or put your bonus on the table. But you do have to make them believe you’d bet on your own idea. Pick one big initiative. Go all in. Make them feel what happens if they say no.

Bring the spreadsheet. But give them a reason to fall in love.

To passion, belief, and getting the funding you want.

Litigation used to be an overhead cost. Minimize the expense. Settle the case. Move on. Bet-the-company work was the exception.

No More. Welcome to 2026.

Complex litigation now stands between new revenue and no revenue. It can shut down competitors, protect entire markets, and open new ones. The wrong law firm can cost way more than any verdict.

Clients know it.

They want strategies on arrival – not weeks later. They want aggressive thinking, unconventional approaches, and lawyers willing to make new rules instead of following old ones. They want to win big because the business consequences are bigger than ever.

More than 70% of clients are increasing their outside counsel spending on complex litigation. The money is moving. So is the work. And not every law firm is invited.

Corporate counsel identified the following firms as best equipped for this new litigation landscape. No prompting. No law firm submissions. Just unfiltered, organic client feedback.

We asked Big Law partners to tell us the most unspoken norms at their firms – the rules everyone knows – but nobody writes down.

These are people handling billion-dollar deals, bet-the-company litigation, existential regulatory threats, and some of the most complicated business problems on earth. So naturally, one of the recurring rules is: Don’t be a dick.

And it wasn’t an isolated response. We heard “Don’t be an asshole,” “Don’t be a jerk,” “Civility,” “Courtesy,” “Respect,” and “Be polite at all times.” So: one of Big Law’s great cultural achievements is persuading extremely successful adults not to be unbearable.

But the unwritten handbook gets better. No jeans. Somewhere, presumably, a partner can be trusted with a client’s $6 billion transaction – but not with casual Friday.

Then there is the expectation to say hi or make small talk in common areas. Big Law has reached the point where acknowledging another human being in the hallway qualifies as a cultural norm.

And then we get closer to the machinery: Keep your head down. Don’t rock the boat. Hierarchy. Don’t ask, don’t tell. And, inevitably, bill bill bill and must bill far in excess of minimums. Now we’re cooking.

Put all the answers together and Big Law’s unofficial partner handbook starts to emerge. Work insanely hard. Bill a lot. Make money. Be the best. Play nicely with the other partners. Share credit. Respect the hierarchy. Don’t create unnecessary trouble. Wear appropriate pants. Acknowledge other humans when passing them. And above all, don’t be a dick.

Forget the marble lobby, the beautifully designed values page, and the partner retreat where everyone discusses purpose. This may be the most concise description of Big Law culture ever produced.

Perhaps the funniest part is how little explanation any partner needed. Nobody wrote, “Don’t be a dick – by which I mean…” They just wrote don’t be a dick. Everyone knew exactly what they meant.

Welcome to partnership.

Litigation used to be what happened when business went wrong.

In 2027, it increasingly determines what the business gets to do next.

For decades, companies wanted litigation contained, settled, budgeted for, and made to disappear.

Not anymore.

Litigation has a new job.

Protect growth. Clear strategic obstacles. Defend revenue. Protect new products. And, increasingly, determine whether the company gets to execute its strategy at all.

Our new BTI Litigation Outlook 2027 finds litigation increasingly intertwined with launching products, generating revenue, executing business strategy, and companies aggressively protecting – and claiming – their rights.

Corporate counsel are responding in kind.

They are settling less. Fighting harder. Spending more.

BTI projects only 36.7% of matters will resolve in 2027 – the lowest level in our 2015–2027 data. Plaintiffs increasingly want precedent and bigger awards. Defendants worry anything short of a win can derail strategic initiatives.

And there is simply more to fight about.

More matters. More complexity. More novel claims. More riding on the outcome. New matters are growing faster than spending – building a backlog of complex work.

56% of clients are increasing litigation spending. More than 60% of those increasing budgets expect jumps of 10% or more. And bet-the-company – the work clients once prayed they’d never have – is now the fastest growing segment of the market.

There is a lot more money on the table. It won’t be divided evenly.

Clients are moving work. They are looking for firms comfortable where precedent disappears, legal and business strategy collide, and somebody to make the call before all the facts arrive.

The BTI Litigation Outlook 2027 pinpoints where the money is moving, where premium rates prevail, the fastest growing practices, the industries with the greatest needs, and – by name – the firms clients want when the stakes jump.

For decades, litigation’s job was dealing with what already happened. Now it is increasingly helping decide what happens next.

The getting is good. Don’t settle. Go get it.

Nobody wants a fair fight. Especially corporate counsel.

When millions – or billions – are at stake, clients want every unfair advantage they can legally get.

Sometimes the first strategic win happens when the other side sees who just entered the case.

The right opposing counsel makes other lawyers – and their clients – reconsider how long they want to fight, how much they want to spend, how certain they really are – and what losing might look like.

This is fear as a litigation asset.

And the really good part? The reputation starts working before the lawyers do.

BTI asked corporate counsel which law firms they least want to see on the other side. 92 firms earned recognition.

Four inspire a different level of dread. Meet the BTI Fearsome Foursome 2027.

Quinn Emanuel earns the number 1 spot for the 5th year in a row. In-house attorneys report the firm manages to become more Fearsome every year.