Based on these charts some clear trends emerge:

AmLaw100 firms traditionally handle a higher percentage of cases on the defense-side (about 35-45%) than the plaintiff-side (about 10-30%).

As case filings rose after 2009, much of the defense-side increase went to AmLaw 100 firms. However, more recently, AmLaw100 representation of defendants has declined, from a high point in 2011 of 43.1% of cases filed, to only 34.8% of cases filed 2014. During that same time, non-AmLaw firms have been seeing a corresponding increase in the percentage of cases they handle, rising to 54.4% in 2014.

On the plaintiff side, AmLaw100 firms appeared in about 30% of new cases up through 2009; their percentage dropped to around 15% in recent years. Correspondingly, non-AmLaw firms have seen a major jump on the plaintiff side, rising from 55.5% in 2010 to a number near 75% for the last 3 years.

Firms ranked in the AmLaw200 (but not in the AmLaw100) have traditionally represented a smaller fraction of cases than either their AmLaw100 or non-AmLaw colleagues, but this fraction has remained constant within a few points of 10% for defense work. On the plaintiff side, these firms have seen their share of the cases drop from 15.3% to closer to 10% in 2014.

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