Legal tech sellers
The AmLaw 200 is The American Lawyer's ranking of the 200 highest-grossing US law firms. Selling to firms that size typically means technology leaders who evaluate, a committee that approves, and security and AI policy reviews that small firms rarely run.
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The short answer
The AmLaw 200 is The American Lawyer's ranking of the 200 highest-grossing US law firms: the Am Law 100 plus the Second Hundred. For a legal tech seller, that typically means technology leaders, committee approval, client-driven security questionnaires and AI policies. Start there if you can pass that review. Clean finds law firms and legal teams with a real reason to buy what you sell.
The AmLaw 200 is The American Lawyer's annual ranking of the largest US law firms by gross revenue, published by ALM. ALM's methodology page calls it "a ranking of the 200 highest-grossing law firms in the United States" and reports it in two tiers: the Am Law 100, which ALM calls "the definitive ranking of the 100 largest law firms in the United States", and the Second Hundred, the next 100 firms by gross revenue. The 2026 Am Law 100 came out April 14, 2026 and the 2026 Am Law 200 on May 5, 2026, both on fiscal 2025 results.
For a legal tech seller, a firm in that range usually means dedicated technology leaders, a committee that approves larger purchases, and deeper security and AI reviews than a midsize or small firm runs. That is typical, not a rule: no survey we found measures how the ranked firms buy technology, so the large-firm figures below are the closest evidence, not facts about each ranked firm.
This page does not reproduce the ranking or name any firm in it; ALM's full reports require a Law.com subscription. Its public Am Law 200 page, opened October 6, 2026, says Second Hundred gross revenue rose 6.0% in 2025, less than half the Am Law 100's 13%.
The rest of this page answers the seller's question the results page skips: how buying changes as firms get smaller. The full process lives in how to sell software to law firms, each role in law firm COO, CIO and innovation leaders, and every legal guide on the legal tech hub.
Size tells you how a firm will buy, not whether it will. The table pairs each segment with the nearest survey bands, which is our reading: ALM ranks by revenue while the ABA and ILTA count lawyers. Cells marked typical are how firms commonly work, not survey results.
At small firms one lawyer decides and money is the constraint. As firms grow, the decision splits: an administrator, COO or IT director evaluates (the Association of Legal Administrators' 2018 job descriptions have the IT director as the person who "reviews new products and systems"), partners approve, and the firm's clients push security requirements onto the firm, which pushes them onto you.
Buying by firm segment. ABA figures from its 2023 and 2024 survey data as labeled; ILTA from its 2026 Technology Survey of 508 firms worldwide; ALA role definitions 2018. Pairing segments with lawyer-count bands is our reading, not ALM's. Cells marked typical are not measured.
| Segment and nearest survey band | Who decides | What they check | What slows a deal |
|---|---|---|---|
| Am Law 100 (nearest bands: ABA 500 or more lawyers; ILTA over 700) | A partner committee, often called the executive or management committee, approves; CIO or CTO, security, knowledge or innovation leaders evaluate (typical) | Full security review and AI policy fit; 72% of ILTA's responding firms with over 700 lawyers require training before generative AI use (ILTA 2026) | Committee approval, staged pilots and gated AI rollouts (typical) |
| Second Hundred (nearest bands: ABA 100 or more lawyers; ILTA 150 to 699) | A partner committee approves; a CIO or IT director and the COO run the evaluation (typical); 50% of firms with 100+ lawyers employ dedicated IT staff or CIOs (ABA, 2024 data) | Security answers the firm's own clients require: clients asked 50% of firms over 100 lawyers to complete a security questionnaire (ABA, 2023 data) | Client approval rules for AI: required at 38% of ILTA's responding firms with 350 to 699 lawyers (ILTA 2026) |
| Midsize (ABA 10 to 99 lawyers) | Managing partner or management committee for larger commitments; COO, executive director or IT director evaluates (typical; ALA role definitions) | Security requirements: clients asked 59% of firms with 50 to 99 lawyers and 41% with 10 to 49 for the firm's security requirements (ABA, 2023 data) | A set technology budget to fit inside: 94.1% of respondents at firms of 50 to 99 lawyers said they budget for technology (ABA, 2024 data); partner time for committee decisions (typical) |
| Small and solo (under 10 lawyers) | The owning lawyer: 97% of solos and 90% of lawyers at firms of 2 to 9 make their own tech decisions (ABA, 2024 data) | Setup effort, data handling and whether one person can run it (typical) | Price: 74% of solos spend under $3,000 a year on legal software (ABA, 2024 data) |
The clearest public view of large-firm spending is a panel, not a census. The Thomson Reuters Institute and Georgetown Law's 2026 Report on the State of the US Legal Market (January 7, 2026) draws its financial data from 184 US firms: 50 Am Law 100 firms, 58 Second Hundred firms and 76 Midsize firms, which the report defines as US firms ranked outside the Second Hundred. Its figures describe those panel firms, not all US firms, and the Institute belongs to Thomson Reuters, which also sells legal software.
In the second quarter of 2026, spending at these firms rose faster than demand. The Institute's Law Firm Financial Index for that quarter (issued August 10, 2026) put demand up 3.0% year over year, technology and knowledge management spending up 11.6% overall and overhead up 7.7%. The report's 2025 technology and knowledge management figures, and what firms spend them on, are in law firm technology.
ALM's own Am Law 200 coverage (May 5, 2026) describes Second Hundred leaders making sure they know where their money will go the furthest before committing to technology. The January report also says 90% of legal dollars still flow through hourly billing; how to build a business case around that is in how to sell software to law firms.
Larger firms reported more AI use. In the ABA's 2024 AI TechReport (512 respondents, survey fielded October to December 2024), 30.2% of attorneys said their offices were using AI-based technology tools: 47.8% at firms of 500 or more lawyers, 29.5% at 10 to 49 lawyers, 24.1% at 2 to 9 lawyers and 17.7% of solos. Those are late-2024 figures, not 2026 adoption; newer surveys ask different questions, so do not set them side by side.
Typically, at a large firm you arrive after a policy, approved tools and earlier evaluations, so you are compared against what is already approved. At a small firm you may be the first AI tool anyone has tried, and the work is teaching the lawyer what it does with client information. Selling AI to law firms covers the ethics questions both kinds of buyer bring.
Policy depth climbs with size, and firms of 350 to 699 lawyers match or beat the largest firms on several measures. ILTA's 2026 Technology Survey (508 firms worldwide representing over 139,000 lawyers, released September 14, 2026) asked what firms' generative AI policies require. At 350 to 699 lawyers, 98% of responding firms had a formal policy and 38% required client approval, against 91% and 34% at firms of over 700. Selected figures are below; all five size bands and six requirements are in the selling AI guide linked above.
At the largest firms, expect an approved-tools list, human review of output, training before rollout and, at a third or more of firms, client approval. Ask early who owns the policy and what it requires of a new tool.
Selected generative AI policy requirements by firm size, share of responding firms. Source: ILTA Technology Survey 2026 Executive Summary (508 firms). Selected figures, attributed to ILTA.
| Policy requirement | Under 50 lawyers | 150 to 349 | Over 700 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Formal policy in place | 57% | 85% | 91% |
| Work product must be reviewed by a human | 31% | 69% | 79% |
| Specific training required before use | 11% | 47% | 72% |
| Client approval required | 8% | 24% | 34% |
No neutral source we found gives deal sizes, pilot lengths or sales cycles by tier, so do not plan around a number someone quotes you. Use these questions instead. Start in the segment where you can answer yes to most of them, and pick firms by fit and need rather than by where they sit in the ranking.
Clean finds law firms and legal teams with a real reason to buy what you sell, shows the evidence behind each one and names who decides. It also shows who in your team's network can introduce you. Every prospect is backed by real-world records, and Clean keeps the source behind every reason so each one can be checked. Anything Clean cannot confirm stays marked unknown.
You set the ICP by industry, size, region and what you sell, and leave out current customers. Clean is not a list vendor, a contact database or intent data, and does not send messages for you. Your team decides who to contact and what to say.
Book a demo to see law firms and legal teams in your market with a real reason to buy what you sell, the evidence behind each one, and who decides there. More on the section at Clean for legal tech.
The AmLaw 200 is The American Lawyer's annual ranking of the 200 highest-grossing law firms in the United States, published by ALM. It has two tiers: the Am Law 100, the 100 largest firms, and the Second Hundred, the next 100 by gross revenue. The 2026 Am Law 100 came out on April 14, 2026 and the 2026 Am Law 200 on May 5, 2026, both covering fiscal 2025. ALM's full reports require a Law.com subscription.
Only if it can pass their review. Firms that size typically involve technology leaders who evaluate, a partner committee that approves, a full security questionnaire and a formal AI policy with training and approval steps. If your security pack, AI answers and a named champion are ready, start there. If not, midsize or small firms, where fewer people decide, are a faster place to earn references. No neutral source gives deal sizes or cycle lengths by tier.
Find the evaluator first, usually a CIO, security, knowledge or innovation leader, and learn who approves, often an executive or management committee. Have written answers to a security questionnaire and the firm's AI policy before the first meeting. Propose a scoped pilot with a named owner and a success measure. Expect training requirements: ILTA's 2026 survey found 72% of responding firms with over 700 lawyers require training before generative AI use.
Fewer people decide and the review is lighter, but it is not a small-firm sale. At midsize firms a COO, executive director or IT director usually runs the evaluation and the managing partner or a committee approves. Clients still push security requirements down: in ABA data for 2023, clients asked 59% of firms with 50 to 99 lawyers for their security requirements, and 48% to complete a security questionnaire.
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