This year's Am Law 100 results are fascinating for so many reasons, but what struck me the most was what we learned from looking back over the past decade.

What data are you leveraging to sell strategy internally? Get the Am Law 100 data exclusively with Legal Compass.

Nearly all the 100 largest law firms had a strong year in 2020, and they all outperformed the bleak picture initially envisioned at the start of the pandemic. But the firms that did the best, posting double-digit gains in revenue, were on that path well before 2020—no global health emergency was going to stop them.

The American Lawyer editor-in-chief Gina Passarella.

I'm not a big believer in driving growth simply through top-line increases that come from adding head count. What the data shows us is that those firms that had the strongest years aren't either. Out of our 25 top-grossing firms for 2020, 12 have doubled their revenue over the last decade. And those dozen firms included 10 of the 21 in the largest list that grew revenue by 10% or more last year.