The 2026 Lawdragon 500 Leading Lawyers in America

It’s our honor to introduce The 2026 Lawdragon 500 Leading Lawyers in America.

This is our 21^st year honoring the lawyers of now – those advocates who lead the way for clients, their communities, their firms. They are brilliant, impassioned and dedicated to the law and its practice.

That was tested as never before in the year that was – an unprecedented time of Executive Orders targeting some of the nation’s largest law firms and the livelihoods and talents of their lawyers. This guide is a celebration and tribute to the good that lawyers do, and it must be said that the skills and ability of lawyers to provide their services and for clients to hire those lawyers is fundamental.

It was a year that saw boutiques bloom, many driven by impassioned advocates offering a new approach at the highest levels. Litigation boomed, energy loomed, and immigration and security came to a new focus. Deals even made a comeback, with movie studios and railroads in the mix alongside AI.

Ellen V. Holloman of New York’s Kaplan Martin was among the elite advocates moving in the wake of firms grappling with Executive Orders. A star in financial and other complex litigation and investigations, she is equally a dedicated community service and pro bono advocate, having represented veterans, elite universities, LGBTQ individuals in asylum and other matters, children separated from their mother at the U.S.-Mexico border and Afghan nationals who fled to the U.S. after the fall of Kabul in 2021.

Jessica M. Dean of Dallas’ Dean Omar Branham Shirley made headlines as she and her firm won billions against Johnson & Johnson in the intensely fought battle to hold the company liable for its talc-based products, including baby powder, that caused cancer. She grew up, one of eight kids, in St. Louis working her way through school at IHOP. In law school at the University of Texas, she began to meet friends and colleagues who would help her chart a course in which her working-class background could be a force for working people beset with illness from their occupations, in particular exposure to asbestos. She has made it her mission in life to help workers harmed while they put food on the table.

Barry Pollack, the remarkable criminal defense lawyer at the Washington, D.C., office of New York’s Harris St. Laurent & Wechsler stood tall, doing what lawyers do, as he began the defense of Venezuela president Nicolás Maduro after his rendition to U.S. soil to face charges including narco-terrorism conspiracy. He’s spent 35 years in the trenches bringing his background as a CPA and focus on trust and candor to the plight of individuals ranging from Enron and other executives, to a fellow lawyer accused of sexual abuse to wrongly convicted inmates and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. In a world in which accusations are increasingly international and inevitably fast and furious, he exemplifies the calm, compassionate and careful craft of the 500.

We select the 500 through our blend of yearlong research, discussions with lawyers and your very robust nominations. Excellence is required, as, typically, is 15 years in law practice at the highest levels. From America’s first family of trucking litigation in Scranton, Penn., to the peaks of dealmaking in Manhattan, energy litigators and advisors in Houston and national security specialists in Washington, D.C., this 500 is robust with lawyers who inspire us and will shape the law for decades to come.

An important contingent of the Lawdragon 500 can be found in our Hall of Fame. These are the remarkable lawyers who have etched careers that changed lives and commerce for decades. They remain the nation’s top dealmakers and litigators and are permanent members of The Lawdragon 500 Leading Lawyers in America.