In a year when firms with strong transactions businesses filed revenues of 20-plus percent, annual growth rates of 5% to 14% might not sound so impressive. But if a firm can consistently bring in high single-digit revenues over the course of decades, those numbers represent serious and reliable growth. And firms with a strong presence in the nation's capital seem to do exactly that.

On this year's Am Law 100 leaderboard, Washington firms might not have had the most impressive gains, but they certainly proved themselves consistent.