Kirkland & Ellis has emerged as the top mergers and acquisitions (M&A) legal adviser for 2024 in terms of both value and volume on the latest Legal Advisers League Table, which ranks legal advisers by the value and volume of mergers and acquisition (M&A) deals on which they advised, by GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.

An analysis of GlobalData’s Financial Deals Database has revealed that Kirkland & Ellis achieved the leading position by advising on 576 deals worth $422.3 billion.

Aurojyoti Bose, Lead Analyst at GlobalData, comments: “Kirkland & Ellis was the clear winner in 2024, outpacing its peers by a significant margin. It was the only firm to advise on more than 500 deals in the year. Moreover, it was also the only adviser with total deal value surpassing $400 billion during the year. Interestingly, Kirkland & Ellis was also the top adviser by both value and volume during the previous year as well.

“Kirkland & Ellis registered a double-digit growth in total value and volume of deals advised by it during 2024 compared to 2023. It advised on 89 billion-dollar deals*, which also included nine mega deals valued more than $10 billion. Involvement in these big-ticket deals helped Kirkland & Ellis to register improvement in terms of value.”

Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom occupied the second position in terms of value, by advising on $354 billion worth of deals, followed by Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison with $295.7 billion, Cravath Swaine & Moore with $254.4 billion, and Latham & Watkins with $254 billion.

Meanwhile, CMS occupied the second position in terms of volume by advising on 325 deals followed by White & Case with 253 deals, Latham & Watkins with 245 deals, and Allen & Overy with 208 deals.

*Deals valued more than or equal to $1 billion