Technically, it may not have been a depression, but it sometimes felt like one. As a group, leading firms showed across-the-board declines in gross revenue, profits, and productivity (as measured by revenue per lawyer) from 2007 to 2009, according to a compound growth rate (CAGR) analysis. Some managing partners seized the opportunity to strategically reshape their practice mix. A few attempted a more radical reshaping, pulling off transcontinental mergers. But for most, it was a challenging year.
After years of seemingly inexorable rises, the 84 American and British firms that were on the Global 100 in both 2007 and 2009 saw average annual declines of 0.15 percent in gross revenue, 1.3 percent in revenue per lawyer (RPL), and 2.76 percent in profits per partner (PPP). About a quarter of them showed a positive RPL trend over the 2007–09 time frame, and about the same proportion showed a positive PPP trend.
