Big Law brought plenty of big stories to the table in 2019. But large firms weren't the only ones innovating.

Midsize firm leaders across the country were also thinking differently, as they looked to meet the changing demands of the legal industry. Here are a few examples ALM reported on throughout the year.

Rethinking the Business Model

Even in Big Law, C-suites vary in size and function. At midsize law firms, figuring out the best mix of professional leadership depends on the firm, and certainly has changed over the years.

Roseland, New Jersey-based Mandelbaum Salsburg added several new C-suite roles in 2019. The firm created chief operating officer, chief marketing officer and chief strategy officer positions, filling them with existing professionals and a new hire. And earlier in the year, it added a chief technology officer/chief information officer.

"The label of choice today is to describe such a team of professionals as your 'C-suite of officers,'" CEO William Barrett told the New Jersey Law Journal in July. "Whatever description you want to give them, I can tell you that their hard work and talent has been invaluable to our law firm's continued success and growth, and the efficiencies and skill sets they have brought to the table have not only covered their cost but have made the law firm more productive and profitable and have allowed me to run the law firm in a manner that has allowed our attorneys to maximize their opportunities and productivity," he said.

Texas firm Kane Russell Coleman Logan also converted to a C-suite model, with business professionals taking on an increased role at the firm. Meanwhile, the firm's founders worked on a plan to pass leadership responsibilities on to the next generation, appointing two new managing directors.

Joseph Coleman, a founder of the firm and the current managing director, told Texas Lawyer the four firm founders will continue to practice there for the next 10 years, give or take. But he said now is the right time to implement a model with younger "up-and-comers" in leadership roles and business professionals handling day-to-day duties.

Honigman, a Detroit-based firm in the Am Law 200, rethought its structure not at the top, but in the middle, as it faced a pricing issue. The firm had a "reputation for being at the top end of the price scale," Don Kunz, the chair of Honigman's corporate department, recently told The American Lawyer. As a result, the firm is missing out on lower-priced, daily legal work the firm's clients need done, Kunz said.

So the firm implemented a third tier for nonpartner-track lawyers, who can be billed out at a lower price than partners or associates. It currently employs 18 lawyers in that group. Now, Kunz said, "We're able to serve clients with capable attorneys who are at the price point, and to bring additional resources to bear."

Other innovative structures are focused on the where and how of business getting done, as opposed to who is leading it.

When Amazon vetted 11 law firms to provide IP services to its sellers, one full-service firm made the list: FisherBroyles. While the other 10 are smaller IP boutiques, FisherBroyles has about 250 lawyers across the country working remotely as part of a virtual firm.

FisherBroyles leadership said their firm was a good fit for the program because of its unique structure and its openness to alternative fees. "Amazon recognized we were a fixed-cost brick-and-mortarless enterprise in sort of the same way that they are," Atlanta-based managing partner James Fisher told The American Lawyer.

"We didn't have to slash our rates," partner Scott Harders, who spearheaded the firm's involvement in the program, added. "We eliminate such overhead so that the partners can share more reasonable, more boutique-type rates."

Pay and Perks

In the fight for talent across the industry, midsize firms often have to be creative to compete with Big Law salaries and benefits.

Still, some boutiques have kept pace with their larger counterparts, or outpaced them.

Susman Godfrey, for instance, continued its tradition of distributing bonuses that far outweigh the Big Law standard, set this year by Milbank. Co-managing partner Neal Manne told Texas Lawyer the six-figure bonuses, which reached a median of $225,000 for the most senior associates, were not a recruiting tool, but simply a way of thanking associates for their work.

At New Jersey-based Lowenstein Sandler, New York associates have typically made more than their colleagues in the Roseland home office. But that will soon change. Beginning in January, first-year salaries in New Jersey will increase from $170,000 to $190,000, second-year pay will increase to $200,000, and third-years will get $220,000, according to Gary Wingens, chairman and managing partner at Lowenstein Sandler.

"We believe compensation should be what you do, not where you work," Wingens told New Jersey Law Journal.

Compensation isn't the only way firms are making themselves more attractive to potential recruits.

California's Tyson & Mendes launched a program that provides its lawyers with help in paying for their education. Managing partner Robert Tyson told The Recorder the firm plans to contribute $10,000 over five years of gradually increasing monthly payments toward the student loans of eligible attorneys, or the same amount toward 529 college savings plans for their loved ones.

"The main reason is to attract top talent and to recruit really excellent attorneys," Tyson said. "And then what we realized as we were rolling this out to attract talent is that it is something we should do for our current attorneys who have been loyal to us for years."

And a fellow West Coast-based firm, Munger, Tolles & Olson, expanded its parental leave policy. Now, all new parents can get up to 18 weeks of paid leave, while birth mothers are able to take additional disability leave. The firm also offers a subsidized, on-site childcare center for its employees in Los Angeles, in which 70 children are currently enrolled.

"We have always been a market leader on family benefits," partner Rose Leda Ehler told The Recorder. "So, this is another move consistent with that tradition [of] having a very progressive and generous family leave policy."

Mergers and Expansion

Midsize firms have been active participants in the busy lateral market, and tracking every one of those moves from this year might take more words than you'd care to read. But a few midsize moves this year were particularly eye-catching.

Mid-Atlantic firm Offit Kurman jumped on the Southeast bandwagon, bringing on a 27-lawyer group in Charlotte from Horack, Talley, Pharr & Lowndes. Co-founder and CEO Ted Offit told The American Lawyer it was important to his firm to bring on a group with longtime ties in the area.

Charlotte has been a hotbed for large law firm expansion in recent years. According to data collected by ALM, 24 Am Law 200 firms now have an office in the city, and the number of Am Law 200 lawyers there has increased by 21% in the last decade.

Like Offit Kurman, Pittsburgh-based Babst Calland Clements and Zomnir had its sights set on geographic expansion to the South. So the firm brought on four lawyers, merging with Houston's Chambers Law Firm, which focuses on oil and gas matters.

Managing shareholder Donald Bluedorn II told The Legal Intelligencer his firm spent about eight months looking for a firm to merge with in Texas. He said Babst Calland had a number of existing clients in the Appalachian region that were also involved in oil and gas activity in the Permian Basin and Mid-Continent region, which includes Texas, New Mexico and Oklahoma. "It didn't make sense to us to bootstrap our way into that by having Pittsburgh lawyers do work down there," Bluedorn said.

Across the country, in Seattle, two local firms tied their deep Pacific Northwest roots together. Foster Pepper and Garvey Schubert Barer made their union official in September, creating a 180-lawyer firm.

Garvey Schubert chair Greg Duff told The Recorder he started the discussion with Foster Pepper's Steve DiJulio last fall as the firm "deliberately" seeks to expand its offerings to meet increasing client demands.  DiJulio said Foster Pepper had been approached by a number of national firms but decided to move forward with Garvey Schubert because of the firm's history in the Pacific Northwest.

Other midsize firms took different approaches to geographic growth.

Freeman Mathis opened offices in Connecticut and Pittsburgh this year, hiring a former general counsel from National Holdings Corp. in New Haven, and pulling a lawyer from Litchfield Cavo in Steel City.

Speaking of Pittsburgh, midsize firm Cohen & Grigsby, which is based there, entered a unique deal with global megafirm Dentons, while Indianapolis-based Bingham Greenebaum Doll did the same. While Dentons has completed numerous mergers over the years, these two deals were the first in a planned series of arrangements in which midsize firms across the U.S. will retain their legacy brand, while gaining access to the Dentons platform and resources.

But joining forces with a mega firm isn't the only way to expand overseas. Detroit-based Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone opened a Qatar office, led by two lawyers who joined from K&L Gates earlier in the year. The firm told The American Lawyer that its Doha outpost will focus on serving the firm's clients specifically in the aerospace, cybersecurity and defense industries.