Boosted by strong demand in multiple practice areas, Haynes and Boone posted record gross revenue of nearly $400 million in 2017— up 6 percent compared with 2016, while its net income improved by 4.1 percent year-over-year.

The firm's gross revenue totaled $397,500,000 in 2017, compared with $375,000,000 in 2016. Net income came in at $127,245,000 in 2017, up from $122,200,000 the year before.

Revenue per lawyer was $730,000 in 2017, up 6.6 percent when compared with $685,000 in 2016. And profits per partner totaled $957,000, up 3.1 percent when compared with $928,000 the year before.

Timothy Powers, managing partner of the Dallas-based firm, said Haynes and Boone benefited from robust demand in its corporate, M&A and capital markets practices, and from a “really strong pickup” in energy throughout the year. Finance and real estate also did well, he said.

Significantly, he said, the firm's litigation practice, particularly in Texas, including appellate work, posted strong growth in 2017. In one significant matter, Haynes and Boone litigators, along with a team from Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, won a $500 million verdict in federal court in Dallas in February 2017 in an intellectual property lawsuit for clients ZeniMax Media Inc. and idSoftware.

He said demand was down a bit in intellectual property prosecution after several very busy years, but post-grant review work picked up.

On the expense side, the firm made a large investment in technology by moving to a new cloud-based document management system, he said.

The 2017 results are particularly sweet because 2016's numbers included a contingency fee recovery of about $11 million to $12 million, Powers said. In 2016, gross revenue at Haynes and Boone improved by 3.6 percent when compared with 2015, and net income increased by 3 percent.

Powers said many of the firm's practices outperformed their budgets in 2017. “It was really a strong performance year overall,” he said.

In 2017, Haynes and Boone had 545 lawyers on a full-time-equivalent basis, down from 547 the year before. But the firm was active in the lateral hiring market, bringing on lawyers in Texas, London, New York, Palo Alto and Washington, D.C.  Those hires include prominent Texas appellate lawyer Mike Hatchell, who came from Locke Lord in Austin, and energy litigators Craig Stahl and Jeffrey Kuehnle, who formerly worked at Andrews Kurth Kenyon in Houston.

Powers said he's cautiously optimistic about 2018, noting that the firm is eyeing some opportunities in the wake of tax reform and infrastructure spending.