Reed Smith's veteran chief, Greg Jordan, has defeated a leadership challenge that threatened to end his nine-year run at the helm of the top 25 US law firm.

Philadelphia-based employment partner John DiNome has decided he will no longer run against Jordan to serve as the firm's global managing partner and chairman of its executive team.

News emerged last week in the US media that DiNome had written a lengthy memo to firm partners announcing his candidacy for the September election and laying out a number of areas in which he argued the firm was headed in the wrong direction.

According to local press reports, DiNome called for a more independent executive committee and said a lack of checks and balances was leading to "exorbitant capital expenditures". He said the firm was overpaying its managers and called for a greater use of alternative fee arrangements as many smaller clients look to smaller firms and lower hourly rates.

Both Jordan and DiNome had said they agreed not to talk about the election publicly, but with the race now back to being uncontested, Jordan spoke to Legal Week's US sister title The Legal Intelligencer.

Jordan said he and DiNome met and realised there was some common ground between them. He said it was DiNome's decision to pull out of the race, and he will continue on at the firm as normal.

Jordan said: "All businesses have a lot to focus on right now so to the extent we can have maximum focus on working our way through the global slowdown, the better off the firm will be."

Some in the legal community questioned whether DiNome, who joined Reed Smith in 1996, would have had a chance against Jordan, who has a long history with the firm and has led Reed Smith far up the Am Law 100 chart to become the 16th largest firm in the US in terms of gross revenue.

Under Jordan, Reed Smith has also substantially raised its global profile after in 2006 securing a takeover of London's Richards Butler, making the firm one of a handful of American practices to achieve a major UK merger. The firm followed up the City move the following year by securing a deal to take on Richards Buter's highly-rated Hong Kong practice.

Since Jordan came on board in 2001, Reed Smith has seen its lawyer headcount grow from 600 to about 1,500 and its gross revenue rise from $268m (£1.67m) to $979.5m (£612m), while its profits per equity partner increased from $400,000 (£250,000) to $940,000 (£587,000).

However, the expansionary firm has been hard hit by the recession, laying off more than 230 lawyers and staff since late 2008, including 28 roles at its UK arm. It also this year became one of the first major US law firms to cut associate pay, dropping salaries by 10% across most of its US offices.

Reed Smith has a self-nomination process for running for managing partner, and Jordan said he had to decide whether he would run again for the term that begins in January 2010.

Jordan said it depends on the firm. He said Reed Smith did pretty well last year and continues to perform strongly in 2009.

Jordan said Reed Smith's strategy will remain largely unchanged in his next three years, assuming no others look to challenge him before September – a prospect sources have said is unlikely. And that strategy is to position the firm to broadly service its major client relationships around the world.

"We are using a variety of strategies to not just get through the downturn, but be positioned to be a long-term winner in this," Jordan said.

"We have got this geographic diversification that really helps us. We have got a practice balance that is very attractive right now."

Reed Smith has scaled back the corporate and real estate practices, and now two-thirds of the firm's lawyers globally are focusing on litigation and restructuring work, he said.