Six Big Bay Area Firms See Am Law 100 Gross Revenue Gains
A half-dozen large firms with roots in San Francisco and Silicon Valley saw their financials rise in 2017.
April 26, 2018 at 03:53 PM
5 minute read
All six firms from Northern California that landed on the 2018 Am Law 100 list saw their gross revenue grow last year.
The big six from the Bay Area experienced financial growth, thanks to continued economic ballast from the region's large technology companies, which drove demand for legal services.
Two Am Law 100 firms once again leading the local pack are Cooley and Morrison & Foerster, which came in at No. 27 and No. 28, respectively, when measured by gross revenue. In 2017, both firms saw their revenues surpass the $1 billion mark. Cooley's jumped 10.1 percent, to $1.07 billion, while Morrison & Foerster pulled down $1.06 billion, a 12.4 percent increase from 2016.
Cooley CEO Joseph Conroy attributed his 897-lawyer firm's financial performance to its clients' success in an innovative marketplace, one that has made startups and emerging companies one of its fastest-growing practices.
Morrison & Foerster's revenue spiked to an all-time high in 2017, a year when the 960-lawyer firm's investments in key practices and lateral hires paid dividends, chairman Larren Nashelsky said in an interview with The Recorder earlier this year.
Coming in after Cooley and Morrison & Foerster are Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe (No. 35 at $974.6 million); Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati (No. 44 at $797 million); and Fenwick & West (No. 95 at $374.9 million). All three of those firms also saw gross revenue growth last year, and claimed that their investments in prior years started to pay off.
Orrick global chairman and CEO Mitchell Zuklie said in March that his firm's 4.9 percent increase in gross revenue and 10.9 percent jump in profits per partner was the result of the lateral hiring spree it embarked on the previous year.
“2016 was a year of really profound growth,” Zuklie said. “We got good news in 2017, we saw that uptick and it paid off for us economically.”
Wilson Sonsini, which so far this year has watched partners peel away for Cooley, Covington & Burling and Latham & Watkins, saw its gross revenue rise 5.6 percent in 2017. That increase helped the firm rise one spot in the Am Law 100 list. Managing partner Douglas Clark previously attributed Wilson Sonsini's strong performance last year to its core practice areas representing technology and life sciences clients.
Clark also cited the 52 hires that Wilson Sonsini made in 2016, along with a new office in Boston, a city that has become a hotbed for Am Law 100 growth in recent months, as contributing to its success in 2017. Wilson Sonsini's head count did slip slightly, to 746.
As for Fenwick & West, which earlier this month confirmed plans to move into new office space in New York as a pair of private equity partners peeled away for Goodwin Procter, the Silicon Valley titan saw its Am Law 100 rankings fall from No. 93 in 2016 to No. 95 last year. Despite that dip, Fenwick & West saw its gross revenue rise 3.7 percent in 2017, to a record $374.9 million. The 321-lawyer firm's profits per partner also inched up 1.5 percent, to $1.51 million.
“Our razor-sharp focus in the technology and life sciences space has been key as our clients succeed and grow rapidly,” said Fenwick & West chairman Richard Dickson in March. “[As those industries] become an increasingly important contributor to the economy overall, that has fueled our extraordinary growth over the past several years.”
Littler Mendelson, a global labor and employment giant based in San Francisco that last year absorbed 16-lawyer British boutique GQ Employment Law, also saw its gross revenue inch up last year by 1.5 percent, to $538 million. The firm's head count also hit the 1,043-lawyer mark.
Overall, the gross revenue for Northern California firms increased by 7.2 percent in 2017, outpacing all the other regions surveyed in a recent analysis by Citi Private Bank's Law Firm Group. Latham & Watkins, a 2,436-lawyer firm with Los Angeles roots, made waves earlier this year when it shattered the $3 billion gross revenue mark in 2017. But that record didn't stand long, as Kirkland & Ellis topped Latham for the No. 1 spot atop the Am Law 100, thanks to its $3.165 billion in gross revenue last year.
Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher; Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith; O'Melveny & Myers; Paul Hastings; Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan; and Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton were other firms hailing from Southern California that appeared on the most recent Am Law 100 list.
Other areas such as New York, Pennsylvania, Texas and Washington, D.C., also saw large numbers of firms place in the Am Law 100. The American Lawyer's Second Hundred rankings, which usually include several California-based firms, comes out next month.
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