National labor and employment firm Jackson Lewis reported healthy revenue and profit growth for 2019, as the firm continued to expand its lawyer head count.

Revenue grew 8.6% to $486.15 million, which bumped up revenue per lawyer by 5.2% to $562,000. A 9.1% hike in net income translated into a 5.1% increase in average profits per equity partner of $634,000.

Co-chair Kevin Lauri attributed Jackson Lewis' growth to "strong demand across the board." Lauri said the firm's employment litigation and counseling practice stayed busy, while its class action practice continued to expand.

Lauri, who is in New York City, and his co-chair, Will Anthony in Albany, New York, were elected co-leaders of the firm in 2018 and are serving a four-year term. "We are proud of what we achieved financially [last year] and how we are serving our clients," Lauri said.

Jackson Lewis, a New York-founded firm that has become the nation's second-largest labor and employment firm, increased overall lawyer head count by 3.2% last year, for 865 lawyers.

(Even as the number of attorneys grew, average hours billed per attorney stayed steady, reflecting strong demand for the firm's services, Lauri said. Jackson Lewis' lawyers billed on average 1,677 hours.

The labor and employment firm added 20 lateral partners—including 10 in the fourth quarter of 2019, Lauri said, and opened two new offices in Silicon Valley and Charlotte, North Carolina, for a total of 61 locations, all in the United States. It also promoted 37 lawyers to partner.

The net total number of partners held steady at 447, but Jackson Lewis increased the number of equity partners by a net of 10 (3.9%), while its income partner count dipped commensurately to 183.

Jackson Lewis recruited employment litigator Neda N. Dal Cielo from rival labor and employment firm Littler Mendelson to head the new Silicon Valley office, which now has four lawyers. That is the firm's sixth California office, where it also has locations in San Francisco, Sacramento, Los Angeles, Orange County and San Diego.

Lauri said the firm is planning to open another Southern California office in Riverside.

He added that California is an important investment area. Revenue from its California practice grew by 15% to 20% last year, he said, adding "We don't see that slowing down."

The Charlotte office expands the national firm's Southeastern presence, where it has large offices in Atlanta and Raleigh, North Carolina, and Greenville, South Carolina. To open the new North Carolina location, Jackson Lewis recruited H. Bernard Tisdale III, who has an employment litigation and compliance practice, from Ogletree Deakins Nash Smoak & Stewart, where he'd managed that firm's Charlotte office for more than a decade.

"We've been looking at Charlotte for a while and see growth opportunities there," Lauri said, adding that many of the firm's clients have operations in that area.

Internal Investments

Jackson Lewis invested in training lawyers and technology last year, Lauri said, while continuing its commitment to diversity. "One of our main goals is holding onto our culture of collaboration and collegiality," Lauri said.

The firm held a trial academy, convening 40 of its partners who are trial lawyers to meet with judges and hone courtroom advocacy skills over several days, Lauri said, adding that the firm won 19 trials for clients last year.

On the technology side, Jackson Lewis hired a new chief technology officer and its first-ever chief innovation officer, after adding its first diversity and inclusion director at the end of 2018.

The firm is further investing in data analytics, Lauri said, building off a group of about 25 data analytics professionals on a team initially established to serve its class action practice and affirmative action group. That practice prepares about 2,500 affirmative action plans annually for companies and defends them in Office of Federal Contract Compliance Program audits.

The analytics team is now serving other practices as well, and Lauri said the firm is exploring offering its predictive analytics and other data analysis services to general practice firms with class action practices.

"We want to be great lawyers at Jackson Lewis and make sure that everyone is working together," he said.

The Work

High-profile matters for the firm last year included representing the Arizona Board of Regents in settling a gender discrimination suit brought by female deans at the University of Arizona, alleging unequal pay. The deans were represented by employment plaintiffs firm Sanford Heisler Sharp. The firm also represented the University of Arizona in a probe by the National Collegiate Athletic Association over a basketball coach convicted of accepted $20,000 in bribes from a sports agent.

Jackson Lewis represented Google in an action brought by the U.S. Labor Department's Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs seeking access to Google's salary history for 25,000 employees going back to the company's formation in 1998, as part of a federal compliance review looking at alleged pay disparities. The DOL last year dropped its appeal of a 2017 ruling that said its salary history demands were over-broad.