Shearman & Sterling saw an 8% fall in both revenue and partner profits in 2010, reports the Am Law Daily.

The New York law firm this week released figures showing that gross revenues slid from $801m (£497m) in 2009 to $737m (£457m), while profits per equity partner fell from $1.74m (£1.07m) to $1.57m (£972,000).

Revenue per lawyer and billable hours stayed roughly flat, at $927,000 (£576,000) and 1.5 million hours respectively.

Senior partner Rohan Weerasinghe (pictured) attributed the fall to an unusual number of large deals straddling the New Year, which will lead to revenue collected in 2011. "We had a very strong second half, and we're going into 2011 with a strong pipeline," he said. Had the firm enjoyed its usual collection rate, Weerasinghe said, revenues would have held steady.

Shearman also saw lawyer headcount fall to 795 and non-partner headcount (associates/counsel/of counsel) to 584, which represent declines of about 8% and 11% respectively. The number of non-equity partners surged by about 70%, to 27. Weerasinghe said that, although the firm remained cautious in entry-level recruiting, in 2010 it welcomed back its deferred associates and was active on the market for lateral talent.

Last year saw Shearman open a new office in Milan, and double the number of partners in its Hong Kong office to eight, partly through the lateral recruitment of Hong Kong law specialists Colin Law and Peter Chen from O'Melveny & Myers. Last week, it also announced the hiring of a well-regarded antitrust team from Howrey in Brussels. The top 50 US law firm has a 26-partner office in London, which in 2009 generated 12.4% of Shearman's global revenues.

In 2010 M&A highlights, Shearman advised the targets in Kraft Foods' $19.5bn (£12.1bn) takeover of Cadbury, and SAP America's $5.8bn (£3.6bn) purchase of Sybase.

Major capital markets work saw Shearman advise the underwriters on the largest-ever offering in the world (Petrobras) and Southeast Asia (Petronas), as well as the year's largest in North America (Athabasca Oil Sands) and Europe (Enel Green Power).

"We're getting landmark cross-border matters and building out our platform strategically," said Weerasinghe. "It's taking a little time for the impact to show, but it definitely will."