Robert Novick of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr. (Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/NLJ)

Success across core practices—including commercial litigation, intellectual property, corporate work and congressional investigations—contributed to another year of financial growth at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr.

Total revenue in 2019 increased 3.1% to $1.184 billion. Overall attorney head count and the firm's single-tier partnership both contracted slightly, helping to drive revenue per lawyer up 4.9% to $1.4 million and profits per equity partner up 7.5% to $2.3 million.

"It was a terrific financial year in the sense that all key metrics were up," said Wilmer's co-managing partner Robert Novick, who added that average partner profits had doubled over the last decade at the firm.

Among the their 2019 litigation highlights, Wilmer lawyers successfully defended Harvard University's race-conscious admissions system, and they paved the way for T-Mobile to close its merger with Sprint after multiple state attorneys general challenged the proposed deal.

A Wilmer team also helped shape the $21.4 billion acquisition of client General Electric Life Sciences' biopharma business by Danaher, and the firm's lawyers represented 69 different clients in congressional investigations.

"Our successful year was driven equally by contributions from all key practices," Novick said.

The firm was modestly smaller than it was the year before, with a 15-lawyer net decrease to 844 attorneys. There were eight fewer equity partners, 244, than a year ago. The number of lawyers at the firm has been trending down since peaking at 988 attorneys in 2013.

"We have been very disciplined in managing our head count," Novick said. "We anticipated that at some point there would be a dip in the economy, and we managed with that in mind. We've maintained a pretty stable headcount relative to the demand for services."

Notable departures included Sharon Cohen Levin, a Southern District of New York alum who moved to Sullivan & Cromwell in September, and Randall Lee, the former head of the firm's Los Angeles office, who moved to Cooley last February.

Novick pointed out that the firm also made a handful of key hires in 2019, both lateral additions as well as former Wilmer attorneys who rejoined the firm after working in government. The firm in October rehired Robert Mueller, who in 2017 left to serve as special counsel to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 election, along with colleagues Aaron Zebley and James Quarles. (Another key Mueller team member and senior Justice Department official, Ed O'Callaghan, joined this month.)

Wilmer also rehired former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commissioner Dan Gallagher and former Colorado U.S. Attorney John Walsh.

The firm also made 10 lateral hires from other firms over the course of the year, spread across all U.S. offices except for Los Angeles, Novick said. He also noted their diversity, saying four were women and five were attorneys of color. The firm's new additions included IP litigator Sonal Mehta, who joined the Palo Alto office from Durie Tangri, and another transactional  trio from Foley & Lardner.

Wilmer in 2019 also hired a new diversity and inclusion leader, Tracey West, who joined from Boston College Law School.

Before the novel coronavirus outbreak sent the economy into free fall and shifted many Americans into remote work, Novick said the firm was in the middle of working on a new strategic plan for the coming decade, which included growth in California—the firm opened its San Francisco office in 2019—and New York.

Speaking in March, as the pandemic's impact on the economy was still just beginning to come into focus and before major law firms had begun adopting serious cost-cutting measures— Novick said the firm was still just beginning to adjust its expectations for 2020. He said the shift to a remote working environment had been smooth, and the firm was well-positioned to weather a downturn.

"We came into this with a very strong financial position—little debt, strong capital, good headcount relative to demand and high revenue per lawyer," he said. "We're in a good position to manage through this."

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

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