Welcome to the rebirth of Washington Wrap, a weekly look at the biggest legal industry news and Big Law moves shaping the legal business in Washington, D.C. Send tips and lateral moves to Ryan Lovelace at [email protected].

Policy turmoil and a decade of uneven recovery from the financial crisis have firmly established the nation's capital as a “destination market” for law firm business, according to Michael McKenney, Washington, D.C.-based managing director of Citi Private Bank's Law Firm Group.

A Citi survey of 2017 law firm financial performance released this month found D.C. firms surpassing their counterparts nationwide in revenue growth, amid one of the best years for firms in Washington since the Great Recession.

“The regulatory regime and financial reform coming through over the past decade has made D.C. much more important,” McKenney said. “In many ways K Street and Pennsylvania Avenue have become the new Wall Street.”

Citi also found total lawyer head count in Washington expanding at a faster clip than in other U.S. markets, as D.C. firm leaders appear bullish about demand.

The bank sampled 189 firms and found strong results nationwide last year, with revenue and profit growth surpassing 2016 results and with demand showing signs of improvement, especially in the fourth quarter.

Positive signs have also been evident in some of the early reports on Am Law 200 financial results for firms with a big D.C. presence.

Hogan Lovells joined the $2 billion club in global revenues for the first time in 2017, as the firm approaches the eighth anniversary of D.C.-based Hogan & Hartson and London-based Lovells teaming up. The second half of 2017 produced strong results for the firm, said Hogan Lovells CEO Stephen Immelt, as the firm saw a nearly 5 percent uptick in billable hours growth over 2016.

Other firms passing financial milestones include Washington-based Arent Fox, which capped off its most profitable year ever in 2017 with a 6.7 percent rise in profits per partner. Chairman Mark Katz attributed the good news to a balanced practice mix, and also to the Trump administration's “America First” stance on trade, which he said coincided with a boost in his firm's international trade practice.

Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld dominated the D.C. lobbying scene among law firms in 2017. Its lobbying-related income approached $40 million last year, as the firm saw its gross revenues jump above the $1 billion for the first time.

Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher's gross revenues ticked up 2.3 percentage points to approximately $1.643 billion in 2017. Revenue per lawyer and profits per partner each took a slight dip as the firm added nearly 40 lawyers.

One D.C.-based firm that saw its numbers slide in 2017 still posted record gains over the long haul. Crowell & Moring's gross revenue slipped 3.6 percent last year to $418.7 million, while profits per partner plummeted 22.9 percent to $1.17. But 2017 was still Crowell & Moring's “second-biggest year ever” after 2016, when the firm's revenue rose 20 percent and PPP jumped 40 percent, according to firm chair Phil Inglima.

Law firm moves, news and notes:

• Speaking of Crowell & Moring, the firm added two partners this week with Justice Department pedigrees. Anuj Vohra, most recently special counsel at Covington & Burling and formerly of the DOJ's Civil Division, joined Crowell's government contracts group as partner.
• Former federal prosecutor William Chang, who was a founding member of the Justice Department's corporate health care fraud strike force, left the government to become a partner in Crowell & Moring's health care and white-collar and regulatory enforcement groups.

D.C. firms also added Securities and Exchange Commission alums:

• Former SEC branch chief Jim Curtis, who worked 25 years at the agency, joined Dechert as counsel in its corporate and securities practice group.
• Morrison Foerster lured Susan Gault-Brown away from Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. Gault-Brown formerly served as senior counsel at the SEC's division of investment management.

Antitrust expertise was in high demand too, including with a major defection from Jones Day:

• Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom poached the leader of Jones Day's global antitrust and competition practice, David Wales. Wales' hire was a bright spot this week for the firm, which was in the headlines over former Skadden associate Alex van der Zwaan's guilty plea in special counsel Robert Mueller's probe.
• Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer added as a partner Eric Mahr, who left the Justice Department as the Antitrust Division's director of litigation in November 2017.

Elsewhere in Washington, the litigation boutique Wilkinson Walsh + Eskovitz added James Rosenthal as a partner in D.C. Rosenthal previously worked as vice president and associate general counsel at Altria Client Services and as a partner at the law firm that formerly identified itself as Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer. Wilkinson Walsh + Eskovitz has grown to include nearly 45 lawyers since its creation in 2016.

Outside the beltway, it was a busy news week for Baltimore-based Miles & Stockbridge.

• The firm elected Nancy Greene as its chair and Joseph Hovermill as president and CEO, with Greene becoming the first woman to lead the 250-lawyer firm in its 86-year history.
• A group of attorneys from Miles & Stockbridge are leaving to open a Baltimore office for South Carolina-based Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough. Timothy Hodge Jr., who will lead Nelson Mullins' corporate group in Baltimore, said in a statement that the 11-partner team's decision to exit Miles & Stockbridge now had nothing to do with Greene and Hovermill's elections.