(Courtesy photo)

In its first full year since it was created via a trans-Atlantic merger, Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner saw revenues dip slightly to $869.1 million.

That's down 3.4% from the $899.4 million the firm reported for 2018, when the combination between St. Louis-based Bryan Cave and London-based Berwin Leighton Paisner was finalized April 1. The firm also saw a mild drop in net income, sagging 3.8% to $228 million.

But London-based co-chair Lisa Mayhew emphasized that the firm's performance in 21 months of combined operations offered a rosier picture, highlighting a 5% increase in combined profits from 2018, when compared to the two legacy firms in 2017, and a 1% increase in combined revenue. (The firm declined to detail its U.K. or U.S.-specific financial performance.)

"In all the literature you read concerning mergers, you would normally expect a short-term decline on those, from the inevitable disruption," she said. "This is a very encouraging result."

Head count was largely stable at BLCP, with the total number of lawyers ticking 1.8% downward to 1,399. The number of equity partners dropped 2.5% to 274, and profits per equity partner dipped 1.3% to $833,000.

Mayhew added that the firm finished 2019 with a positive cash balance of $86 million, and said the combined firm had seen growth in global antitrust work, mergers and acquisitions and real estate work, along with real estate and corporate finance.

The firm advised Pyatt Broadmark Management in its merger to form Broadmark Realty Capital, a $1.5 billion publicly traded Maryland mortgage REIT listed in the NYSE. Dealmakers represented XBiotech Inc. in its $750 million sale to Johnson & Johnson subsidiary Janssen Biotech. And the firm guided American Electric Power Co. in a subsidiary's purchase of Sempra Renewables, gaining $1.1 billion in wind generation and battery storage assets.

Mayhew gained a new co-chair at the start of 2020, St. Louis-based M&A specialist Steve Baumer. The firm also bolstered its leadership team in 2019 with the hire of former Ashurst London managing partner Simon Beddow, who is serving as the firm's new corporate deputy departmental managing partner.

"We're excited about the overall platform and what we've built," Baumer said. "Our one firm, single profit pool structure means there are absolutely no structural barriers to bringing the power of the full firm to our clients."

Speaking March 12, just before the wave of cancellations and closures late last week made a global recession appear inevitable, Baumer said that he was still bullish about M&A and corporate finance, along with real estate work for the rest of 2020.

"We're not at this point seeing an immediate impact on the level of productivity and business that the firm is transacting," Mayhew said at the time. 

The firm added 22 laterals in 2019, led by six in the corporate practice in London, Paris and Kansas City, and seven in finance in London, Hong Kong, Paris and Washington, D.C. Four more partners joined in litigation and corporate risk, while five joined in real estate.

Prior to the global disruption, firm leaders had been eager to grow the M&A practice in London and Paris, while boosting the real estate practice in Chicago, New York and California.

And with 31 offices around the globe, there's currently no plans to expand the firm's footprint.

"That's not top of our mind," Mayhew said.

The firm also made a splash in 2019 with the launch of BCLP Cubed, a new division helmed by representatives from each of the two legacy firms, focusing on commodity work.

"We're always pressing the needle on innovation and how we serve our clients," said Baumer, calling BCLP Cubed a "seamless solution to high-volume legal needs."

And when it comes to pricing more conventional services, the firm's U.S. lawyers are open to taking lessons from their European counterparts who have been at the forefront of alternative financial arrangements.

"Part of the power of our combination is the ability for our colleagues across the platform to understand where the client base has gone in Europe and the ability to bring best practices to the forefront as we talk to clients in other jurisdictions like the U.S.," Baumer said.