White & Case and Kirkland & Ellis emerged as the leading mergers and acquisitions (M&A) legal advisers in the power sector during the first three quarters (Q1 to Q3) of 2025 in terms of deal value and volume respectively.
The latest legal advisers league table by GlobalData, a data and analytics company, show White & Case achieving the top spot in the value table by advising on deals worth $45.7bn.
Kirkland & Ellis took the leading place in the volume table by advising on a total of 26 deals.
GlobalData lead analyst Aurojyoti Bose stated: “Interestingly, there are many similarities between the performance of White & Case and Kirkland & Ellis. Apart from leading by value, White & Case occupied the second position by volume during Q1 to Q3 2025. Similarly, Kirkland & Ellis, apart from leading by volume, occupied the second position by value during the same period.
“Both the law firms registered year-on-year improvement in terms of deal volume and value, and subsequently improvement in their respective ranking by these metrics. They were also involved in several big-ticket deals during Q1 to Q3 2025 and in some cases, they even advised on the same high-value deal. For instance, both Kirkland & Ellis and White & Case advised on $16.4 billion deal for the acquisition of Calpine by Constellation Energy.”
In terms of value, Kirkland & Ellis took the second position, advising on $45.3bn worth of deals, followed by Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher with $35.7bn, and Latham & Watkins with $24bn. Debevoise & Plimpton and Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson jointly took fifth position, with each advising on one deal valued at $16.4bn.
White & Case took the second spot in the volume table with 23 deals. Although CMS also advised on 23 deals, it ranked at third place due to their lower cumulative value. Latham & Watkins claimed fourth place with 21 deals, and Dentons followed in fifth position with 19 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 in 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.
