An Am Law 100 Cheat Sheet

Call it the Don Draper effect: standing still while the world around you is changing rapidly. That’s largely what The Am Law 100 did last year. It posted modest but nevertheless respectable gains. Revenue, revenue per lawyer, average compensation–all partners, and profits per equity partner all edged up: 3.4 percent, 2.6 percent, 3.0 percent, and 4.2 percent, respectively. It wasn’t a flashy year, but a few things stood out.

• Legitimate good news. Revenue per lawyer is up not because firms added head count—that metric only nudged up 0.8 percent—but primarily as a result of positive economic indicators. Firms were able to raise rates, and their lawyers, as a rule, were able to bill more hours (although this varied widely by practice area). Profits followed a similar path. Net income edged up 4.2 percent, and profits per partner rose even as equity partner head count stayed flat. This suggests that firms posted real profit gains, as opposed to (ahem) adjusting their partner head count.