Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz and Kirkland & Ellis have emerged as the top mergers and acquisitions (M&A) legal advisers in North America in terms of value and volume, respectively, for the first three quarters of 2025.
The rankings are based on an analysis of financial deals database of GlobalData, a data and analytics firm.
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Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz secured the top spot in terms of deal value, advising on transactions totalling $369.4bn.
On the other hand, Kirkland & Ellis led in terms of deal volume, having advised on 337 transactions.
GlobalData lead analyst Aurojyoti Bose said: “Kirkland & Ellis not only led by volume but also outpaced its peers by a significant margin. In fact, it was the only firm to advise on more than 300 deals during the review period, including several high-value transactions. Resultantly, Kirkland & Ellis occupied the second position by value as well during Q1-Q3 2025.
“Meanwhile, the total value of deals advised by Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz more than doubled during Q1-Q3 2025 compared to Q1-Q3 2024 due to involvement in big-ticket deals. It advised on 31 billion-dollar deals* that also included nine mega deals valued more than $10 billion. Resultantly, it went ahead from occupying the sixth position by value during Q1-Q3 2024 to top the chart by this metric during Q1-Q3 2025.”
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By GlobalDataKirkland & Ellis stood second in terms of value, by advising on $320.3bn worth of deals. It was followed by Latham & Watkins with $293.5bn; Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison with $276.3bn; and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom with $248.9bn.
In the volume table, Latham & Watkins took the second spot with 164 deals, followed by Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher with 113 deals; Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison with 111 deals; and Ropes & Gray with 106 deals.
GlobalData’s league tables are based on the real-time tracking of thousands of company websites, advisory firm websites and other reliable sources available on the secondary domain. A dedicated team of analysts monitors all these sources to gather in-depth details for each deal, including adviser names.
To ensure further robustness to the data, the company also seeks submissions of deals from leading advisers.
