Kirkland & Ellis ranks first and Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz second among 25 US law firms in Everything-PR's Law Firms Citation Share Audit 2026, which measured how often five AI engines name each firm on more than 80 buyer-intent legal prompts. Cravath, Swaine & Moore ranks third and Latham & Watkins fourth. Wachtell, with about 272 lawyers, ranks far above larger firms such as DLA Piper, which places 14th.
Which law firms do AI engines cite most?
Kirkland & Ellis tops the ranking with a score of 100, followed by Wachtell at 96 and Cravath at 92. The Citation Share Index is a relative score built from five engines and more than 80 prompts, so each firm's score is read against the others and not as a percentage of citations. The right-hand column shows each firm's 2026 Am Law 100 gross revenue rank where it was confirmed from published Am Law coverage.
| Rank | Firm | Citation Share Index | Am Law 100 revenue rank, 2026 |
|---|
| 1 | Kirkland & Ellis | 100 | 1 |
| 2 | Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz | 96 | not in the top 10 |
| 3 | Cravath, Swaine & Moore | 92 | not in the top 10 |
| 4 | Latham & Watkins | 89 | 2 |
| 5 | Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom | 84 | 5 |
| 6 | Sullivan & Cromwell | 81 | not in the top 10 |
| 7 | Davis Polk & Wardwell | 78 | not in the top 10 |
| 8 | Paul, Weiss | 74 | not in the top 10 |
| 9 | Simpson Thacher & Bartlett | 71 | top 10 (up two places) |
| 10 | Gibson Dunn & Crutcher | 67 | 4 |
| 11 | Sidley Austin | 64 | top 10 |
| 12 | White & Case | 61 | top 10 |
| 13 | Jones Day | 58 | not confirmed |
| 14 | DLA Piper | 56 | 3 |
| 15 | Cleary Gottlieb | 53 | not confirmed |
| 16 | Baker McKenzie | 50 | top 10 |
| 17 | Ropes & Gray | 47 | top 10 |
| 18 | Hogan Lovells | 44 | not confirmed |
| 19 | Morgan Lewis | 41 | 11 |
| 20 | Quinn Emanuel | 38 | not confirmed |
| 21 | Mayer Brown | 35 | not confirmed |
| 22 | Greenberg Traurig | 32 | not confirmed |
| 23 | Wilson Sonsini | 30 | not confirmed |
| 24 | Boies Schiller | 27 | not confirmed |
| 25 | Munger, Tolles | 24 | not confirmed |
How was the audit conducted?
EPR ran more than 80 high-intent legal prompts across ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews, and scored 25 US firms with equal weighting across engines. The prompts covered ten practice areas, including M&A, restructuring, IP litigation, white-collar defense, securities enforcement, antitrust, private equity, capital markets, real estate and employment. Typical prompts were "best M&A law firm," "Wachtell vs Cravath" and "top bankruptcy law firm 2026."
The brand universe is 25 US firms, drawn from the Am Law 100 plus elite litigation and transactional boutiques. The audit is updated quarterly. Scores are modeled and relative, and the prompt-level results are not published.
Why does Kirkland rank first?
Kirkland ranks first on both revenue and citation. The 2026 Am Law 100 reported that Kirkland & Ellis became the first law firm to pass $10 billion in annual revenue, with $10.556 billion in gross revenue, up 19.93%, according to Above the Law's coverage. Latham & Watkins followed at $8.3 billion and DLA Piper at $4.58 billion.
EPR's reading is that Kirkland's lead reflects breadth. The firm appears across private equity, restructuring, M&A, capital markets and white-collar prompts, and the audit rewards firms that surface across several buyer-intent categories more than firms that dominate one. That is an interpretation of the audit's scores, not a measured cause.
Why does Wachtell rank second with far less revenue?
Wachtell ranks second because it is named often, not because it is large. Above the Law reported that Wachtell has 272 lawyers and revenue per lawyer of $5.085 million, and that its profits per equity partner of $12.152 million were the highest in the Am Law 100, up 34.48%, the first to pass $12 million. Despite that, it does not appear in the revenue top 10.
EPR's reading is that the firm's work on high-profile takeover and M&A matters generates steady trade-press coverage, which gives the engines named-deal material to retrieve. In this audit, coverage of the work itself appears to matter more than the size of a firm's marketing program, though the audit does not isolate that factor.
Which sources do AI engines draw on for law firm answers?
The audit's qualitative read is that legal trade press and ranking publications dominate retrieval, while paywalled research databases are largely absent. The table shows EPR's rating of each source's retrieval weight and the engines where it appears strongest. The ratings are EPR's judgment from the prompt runs, not measured shares.
| Source | EPR retrieval weight | Strongest engines |
|---|
| Above the Law | Very high | All |
| The American Lawyer (Am Law 100) | Very high | ChatGPT, Claude |
| Chambers USA | High | Perplexity, Claude |
| Vault Law | High | Perplexity |
| Law360 | High | All |
| Legal 500 | High | Claude, Perplexity |
| Bloomberg Law | Moderate to high | ChatGPT, Claude |
| Reuters Legal | Moderate to high | Claude |
| Wikipedia | Moderate | All |
| Firm-owned websites | Moderate | All |
EPR's read is that Above the Law, which publishes daily, appears more often in answers than Chambers, which publishes annual rankings. Content behind paywalls, including Westlaw and LexisNexis, appears rarely in AI-generated legal answers. EPR has not measured that gap against free legal sources such as Cornell's Legal Information Institute.
How do the engines differ?
Each engine showed a different pattern in the audit, so a firm's rank can change with the engine a buyer uses.
| Engine | Pattern in the audit |
|---|
| ChatGPT | Most consistent across practice areas, with strong Kirkland and Sullivan & Cromwell presence |
| Claude | Most willing to name specific firms; Wachtell appears more than its overall rank would suggest |
| Gemini | Favors large, well-known brands such as Latham and Skadden |
| Perplexity | Draws most heavily on trade press, with the largest Above the Law footprint |
| Google AI Overviews | Sparsest answers; firms outside the top 10 rarely appear |
Which firms rank lower than their revenue suggests?
DLA Piper shows the widest gap. It ranks third in the Am Law 100 with $4.58 billion in gross revenue but 14th in citation share. Baker McKenzie, which is also in the revenue top 10, ranks 16th. EPR reads this as a sign that scale and many offices do not by themselves produce citations on buyer-intent prompts.
What are the limits of this audit?
The audit is a directional ranking from one publisher, and its scores should be read with these limits in mind.
- Scores are relative and modeled, and prompt-level data is not published, so outside readers cannot reproduce the ranking.
- The prompt set is built by EPR and weights engines equally, which may not match how buyers actually split their use.
- Revenue ranks come from Am Law 100 coverage and appear only where confirmed. They describe firm size, not citation quality.
- Source weights and engine patterns are EPR's qualitative readings of the prompt runs.
- Everything-PR and 5W share an ownership group, and 5W sells communications services to firms in this sector.
What does the audit mean for law firm communications?
The audit suggests that firms should check which sources each engine uses for their practice areas before choosing where to invest. This is EPR's reading of the results. Coverage tied to named matters and named partners, active trade-press relationships and an accurate Wikipedia entry all appeared in the answers for top-ranked firms. The operating steps are in the law firm marketing playbook and GEO for law firms.
