Milbank's revenue growth slowed in 2019 and its revenue-per-lawyer fell slightly as its head count grew, but the firm managed to grow its profitability, eking out a 1.3% rise in profits per equity partner.

It was a busy year for Milbank. In 2019, the firm took on a new, shorter name—so long, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy—and moved into new offices in Hudson Yards on the West Side of Manhattan.

Amid all the change, the firm's topline revenue growth, about 3.4% to $1.07 billion, was the slowest since 2016. Lawyer head count rose 5% to 765 full-time equivalent lawyers last year, leading revenue-per-lawyer to contract about 1.5% to $1.4 million.

Average profits per equity partner at Milbank rose 1.3% to $3.9 million, as the firm's equity partner head count expanded by about 5%.

Firm chairman Scott Edelman said receivables valued in the "low eight figures" that would normally hit the firm's accounts in December, in fact, came in January, reducing 2019 revenues. He added that revenue growth would have been closer to 5.5% if the firm's 2018 performance hadn't been boosted by a large contingency fee. He didn't specify what produced the fee.

"Frankly, we didn't think we'd be able to beat the numbers for 2018 in 2019, but we were able to do so," he said. "It was a very strong year."

London office revenues were one particularly bright spot. They rose by 9.9% from 2018 to 2019, from $155.8 million to $171.2 million, according to the firm. Edelman said the firm has been expanding its head count there, adding groups in 2018 in capital markets and restructuring to build out teams in both practices and growing its litigation practice there. He predicted that even bigger revenue growth for the office lay ahead.

The move to new offices in New York went well, Edelman said, adding, "the new space, and the new image, have been transformational for the firm."

Milbank YOY financials

He also expressed satisfaction with the diversity of the firm's new crop of partners, saying 11 of 17 combined lateral additions and promotions to the partnership last year weren't straight white men. (In 2018, all new partners were men, and Edelman had expressed disappointment.) He said progress was especially pronounced in London, where the firm went from having one woman partner in 2017 to having eight today.

The firm's bankruptcy lawyers worked on several major restructuring cases through 2019. They represented the creditors' committee in PG&E Corp.'s Chapter 11 and worked for second-lien creditors in the bankruptcy of telecommunications firm Windstream Holdings. They also worked for noteholders in the restructurings of Thomas Cook, the travel company, and Nyrstar, a metals business, which Edelman called "the most prominent European restructuring of the year."

Milbank financing lawyers represented lenders in the $3.4 billion take private of Inmarsat and in a major transaction for Spanish health care company Grifols. Edelman said the firm also advised on the acquisition of Big Machine Records, adding that the financing practice had "a very busy year in Latin America."

M&A work included the $8.6 billion acquisition of Caesars by Eldorado Resorts, a Milbank client, and representation of the management team of Ardian, a call-center company, in a $1 billion transaction.

The firm's litigators worked on big cases for Visa, Rabobank, the performing rights organization BMI, mutual funds giant Putnam Investments and the insurance companies AXA and Lincoln National Group. Edelman expressed pride at the firm's pro bono successes, including helping Edward Simms, sentenced to life in prison for crimes committed when he was 16, get released on parole after more than three decades behind bars.

Milbank had a few high-profile lateral additions over the course of 2019. David Gindler and three other partners from Irell & Manella joined in August to lead the firm's intellectual property litigation and licensing group; Edelman said they'd been "busy from the get-go." In D.C., the firm added Patrick Campbell, a longtime partner at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, to its transportation and space group.

The Gindler group is "working on a number of significant new engagements that we're excited about," he said. "They're great lawyers with a significant client following."

He declined to comment on reports that Milbank had been in talks to merge with Irell or hire more lawyers from the firm.

The firm's small nonequity tier shrunk last year, from 19 to 14 lawyers, compared with a growth in its equity tier from 150 to 158 lawyers in the same year. Edelman said the nonequity tier is used "strategically, for special situations," and said the firm doesn't use the tier to boost its profit per equity partner.

The 2019 financial figures reported in this article are preliminary. ALM will report finalized data for the Am Law 200 in The American Lawyer's May and June issues.