Size of the legal services market in the U.S. by category 2020-2022

Spending on outside legal counsel is the largest segment of the U.S. legal services industry, totaling 71.2 billion U.S. dollars in 2021. This figure has been steadily growing since 2015, and is expected to reach 76.2 billion U.S. dollars in 2021. These values only include spending on legal services by companies with over one billion U.S. dollars in revenue.

The legal services industry

Globally, the legal services industry was worth 849 billion U.S. dollars in 2017 and is expected to become a trillion dollar industry by 2021. Once all spending on legal services is included, the U.S accounts for almost half of the global legal services market, making it by far the largest market in the world.

Big Law in the U.S. market

One of the reasons why the U.S. has a disproportionately large legal services market, relative to the population and economy of other actors such as Europe and China, is the connection many of the global Big Law firms have with the United States. Of the largest law firms in the world in 2018, only three were not founded in the United States (Dentons, Clifford Chance and Allen & Overy). These large global firms generally base the highest portion of their workforce in the U.S. and often run any large multinational projects from their U.S. office.