FT Innovative Lawyers North America 2025
The Financial Times Innovative Lawyers North America 2025 report is now live, celebrating the most original and impactful legal innovation across the region.
The report examines how North American law firms are responding to a rapidly evolving environment driven by political volatility, geopolitical pressures, and the accelerating influence of AI, highlighting the major themes shaping the region’s legal landscape, including:
- The growing influence of AI across litigation, transactions and internal operations
- Prison reform and justice system innovation
- The evolving “art of the deal” in a shifting transactional market
- Emerging regulatory challenges across industries
- New challenges in regulation, risk and data
- New models of leadership, collaboration and legal service delivery
- Liability management exercises as companies navigate economic pressures
- The boom in data centre development and financing AI
In this year’s rankings, our researchers reviewed hundreds of submissions and conducted extensive interviews with law firms, in-house teams and their clients. The report features standout innovation across North America, including:
Latham & Watkins, named Most Innovative Law Firm in North America 2025, recognised for its breadth of work across the report and the firm’s pro-bono innovation in its US Supreme Court win for Ava Tharpe, lowering a major legal barrier for students with disabilities.
Nasdaq, winner for Most Innovative In-house Legal Team, including its work advising cloud-based market infrastructure with AWS that is now being adopted by exchanges globally to modernise trading, clearing and data operations.
Kirkland & Ellis, winner for Restructuring, for executing a record-setting liability management exercise for Warner Bros Discovery that cut $3bn in debt and set a new precedent for large “fallen angel” companies.
Morrison Foerster, winner for Science and Technology, for advising SoftBank on “Stargate,” its ambitious AI infrastructure joint venture with OpenAI and global technology partners, navigating complex national-security, regulatory and financing issues.
Seyfarth Shaw, winner for Knowledge & Data, for building SEYscraper, an AI-powered litigation tool that turns hours of PAGA research into minutes and enables data-driven settlement strategy.
DLA Piper, winner for Strategic Direction, for redesigning its new-business intake operations across the Americas into a unified, specialist-driven function, significantly reducing conflict-check turnaround times.
Read the full report here
Most Innovative In-house Legal Team in North America: Nasdaq
In-house: Innovation in New Products and Services: Nasdaq
In-house: Innovation in New Roles & Skills: World Bank
In-house: Innovation in Operation Transformation: CrowdStrike
In-house: Innovation in Digital Solutions: Salesforce
In-house: Innovation in Outside Counsel Management: The Hartford Insurance Group
In-house: Innovation in Commercial and Strategic Advice: Cox Media Group
Most Innovative Law Firm in North America: Latham & Watkins
Innovation in AI Strategy: Gibson Dunn
Innovation in Training and Development: Three Crowns
Innovation in New Legal Products: Debevoise & Plimpton
Innovation in Knowledge & Data: Seyfarth Shaw
Innovation in Digital Tools: Morgan Lewis
Innovation in People Strategy: Orrick
Innovation in Strategic Direction: DLA Piper
Innovative Lawyers in Unlocking Capital: Morgan Lewis
Innovative Lawyers in Restructuring: Kirkland & Ellis
Innovative Lawyers in Deal-Making: Hogan Lovells
Innovative Lawyers in Infrastructure: Bracewell
Innovative Lawyers in Science & Technology: Morrison Foerster
Innovative Lawyers in Disputes and Litigation: Gibson Dunn
Innovative Lawyers in Pro Bono: Covington & Latham & Watkins
Innovative Practitioner: Anastasia Peterson, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison
Legal Intrapreneur: Karen Contoudis Buzard, A&O Shearman
