Across the globe, people tend to fixate on the "elite." There are elite athletes and teams. Every country or region seems to have a political elite. There's a lot of talk about corporate elites. But in the world of Big Law, firms are focused on who is, or will be, a member of the legal global elite.

Of course, the global elite in law is merely a concept—one that is ill-defined and may not actually exist. But the legal world commonly gets caught up in FOMO, or fear of missing out. So even firms that don't immediately come to mind as potential members of this club aspire to be in it, or believe they already are.