As Cozen O'Connor continued to aggressively add partners and established an office in Pittsburgh, the firm managed to grow revenue by double digits in 2017, beating its own projections.

Cozen O'Connor posted gross revenue of $416 million in 2017, an increase of 10.7 percent from the year before. Revenue per lawyer increased by 2.1 percent, to $681,000.

Profits per equity partner reached $807,000, rising 5.1 percent, with net income up 11.1 percent to $143.9 million.

“We posted another strong financial and investment year in what has been a long line of very successful years for the firm,” CEO Michael Heller said. “We continue to reap benefits of investments we've made in in the past five years.”

Intellectual property had the strongest year against budget, Heller said, and commercial litigation and subrogation also performed especially well.

The firm “blew away” its budget projections for both revenue and profits, Heller said, adding that is especially meaningful in a year when the firm added several dozen lawyers.

New Hires

While Cozen O'Connor reported head count growth of 8.5 percent, or 48 lawyers full-time over the year, Heller said that resulted from roughly 100 hires throughout the year. The firm now describes itself as having more than 700 lawyers.

The 2017 hires included the addition of a practice group focused on institutional response to sexual misconduct, and growth in the labor and employment practice, including by adding a large group from Buchanan, Ingersoll & Rooney. Those two practice groups exceeded the firm's expectations for 2017, Heller said.

Other areas where the firm has focused attention on growth are its state attorneys general group, as well as real estate and intellectual property, Heller said, and “they all continue to exceed expectations.”

The firm's major additions in 2017 also included a new office in Pittsburgh, which grew out of lateral moves from Buchanan Ingersoll and now hosts more than 20 lawyers. Cozen O'Connor also acquired a real estate boutique in Santa Monica and a campus security consulting firm in Vermont, and it added a Philadelphia construction practice from Pepper Hamilton.

After an industrywide boost in 2016, the firm increased associate salaries again, depending on geography. The starting salary is now $155,000 in Philadelphia and $165,000 in New York and Washington, D.C., Heller said.

Heller said the firm continued to increase the amount of expenses it prepaid in 2017, but declined to give further detail.

Cozen O'Connor did not take any significant cost-cutting measures, Heller said, though the firm continues to “manage the business in a fiscally conservative manner.”

“You can't cut your way to prosperity. You have to keep driving revenues,” Heller said. The firm raised rates by a little over 3 percent, he said.

Still, he noted, efficiency has been a focus, as seen in efforts to improve staff management and the expansion of non-partnership-track department attorney roles. The firm also has aimed to improve its realization, he said, using better technology to reduce write-offs and write-downs.

“One of the reasons why we had such a strong year revenue-wise is that we were able to increase our realization,” Heller said.

Eye on Expansion

Cozen O'Connor will likely continue to expand in its core practices and in key geographic markets in 2018, Heller said. The firm is also working toward adding more alternative sources of revenue that are not strictly legal services. In particular, Heller said he would like to add a family office business to complement the firm's private client services practice.

“At the same time, we're going to continue to spend significant resources on integration,” he said.

As for mergers, Heller said, the firm has no intentions of making any substantial combinations, but is opportunistic about acquisitions.

“If we can bolt on good practices around the country in the 10- to 75-[lawyer] range, we will continue to look at that,” he said.

Already in 2018, the firm has opened an office in Vancouver, British Columbia, and it has continued its growth in Pittsburgh, hiring two more lawyers from Buchanan Ingersoll, bringing the total to 30. It also added to its private client practice, taking a partner who had previously co-chaired that practice at Saul Ewing Arnstein & Lehr.

The firm also implemented the role of chief strategy partner, promoting Miami partner Martin Schrier into the role. Heller said that move is an expansion of a previously existing position at the firm.

“As the firm expands, just by definition the nature of the role expands as well,” Heller said. “It's also indicative of the national and international nature of the firm that the person in that position is in Miami.”