Goodwin Procter hit a new high in 2016, boosting revenue by 5.4% to $912m (£731m) after a year of strategic expansion and growth.

"It was a very exciting year for us," said chairman David Hashmall (pictured), who said 2016 marked the firm's fourth consecutive year of revenue increases.

There were also declines, however, which Hashmall attributed to the firm's sizable growth in headcount last year. After rising 5.3% in 2015, revenue per lawyer dropped 1.8% to $1.08m (£866,000). Profits per equity partner (PEP) slipped 0.5% to $1.98m (£1.587m), after growing 14% to $1.99m (£1.595m) the year prior.

Goodwin brought on 57 new lawyers in 2016, bumping up the firm's headcount by 7.2% to 847 lawyers. The firm expanded its number of equity partners by 4.1% to 203.

"Inevitably, when you bring on a number of lawyers during the course of the year there is a lag between bringing them in and the revenue coming in," Hashmall said.

Goodwin, a 105-year-old firm with Boston roots, doubled down during the past year on six core practice areas: private equity; intellectual property (IP) litigation; financial institutions; securities and white-collar litigation and regulatory matters; technology and life sciences; and real estate capital markets. Hashmall said the firm grew its headcount and expanded to new European markets last year in order to meet clients' needs in those six areas.

Increased client demand in the core areas drove Goodwin's growth in revenue, said Michael Caplan, the firm's chief operating officer. In 2016, demand growth at Goodwin was 3.1%, Caplan said, compared to an industry average of 0.1% demand growth.

"Our increase in revenue and our growth as a firm are not only tied to a rate increase," Caplan said. "We're actually doing things a lot differently in pricing and organically to help grow our client base and our reputation and our brand in these industries."

The firm's private equity, real estate and technology and life sciences practices performed "exceedingly well" in the past year, Hashmall said. Goodwin picked up roles on several high profile deals, including Mid-America Apartment Communities' $3.9bn (£3.1bn) acquisition of Post Properties.

At the beginning of the year, Goodwin moved to expand its real estate and private equity offerings in Europe by opening an office in Frankfurt with a four-partner team recruited from Ashurst in late 2015, which included private equity specialist Lars Jessen.

In April, the firm opened in Paris with a six-partner hire from King & Wood Mallesons' private equity department that reunited the group with Richard Lever, a private equity partner in Goodwin's London office who joined from KWM in 2015.

Goodwin added five more London partners from KWM in November, including UK investment funds head Michael Halford. And the firm has already made several notable lateral hires this year. Last month, it picked up 26 lawyers in London from KWM. This week, it brought on former Facebook counsel and star Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe IP partner Neel Chatterjee in Silicon Valley.

The firm also gave itself a makeover in 2016, rebranding itself as simply Goodwin, dropping the Procter in marketing materials, with a fresh new logo and redesigned website. "We really feel great about all the hard work and investment we made during 2016, [which] we're reaping the benefits of now and going forward," Hashmall said.

Other US law firms to have recently announced their 2016 results include Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, which saw revenue rise 2.7% to $755m (£605m), while PEP fell 11.1% to $1.97m (£1.58m) after a 22.6% leap in 2015.

Elsewhere, Covington & Burling boosted revenues by 13% to $838.5m (£672m) in 2016, with PEP leaping 16% to $1.475m (£1.18m).