California Catches Up to Legal Market Leader in New Partner Promotions
The Golden State trails only New York when it comes to the volume of new partner promotions.
April 25, 2018 at 04:01 PM
4 minute read
Law firms in California have promoted the second most lawyers to partner from Jan. 1, 2017, through the beginning of this year, according to data collected by ALM Intelligence.
The Golden State trails only New York when it comes to the volume of new partner promotions by firms listed in The American Lawyer's Am Law 200 and The National Law Journal's NLJ 500 rankings. ALM Intelligence found that California-based firms promoted 480 lawyers to partner in 2017, while New York had 530 new partners during that same period.
According to another dataset gathered by ALM intelligence, which contains the firm size of The National Law Journal's 500 firms, the proportion of total partners in New York and California is relatively close to the number of new partners promoted, with 7,025 partners in New York and 6,647 partners in California. While New York firms have a total number of 25,445 lawyers, and firms in California have 18,997 lawyers.
Within California, firms in Los Angeles have promoted the most lawyers to partner at 162, followed by 112 partners in San Francisco and 40 in San Diego. But when including all municipalities in Silicon Valley, such as Santa Clara and San Mateo counties, that region promoted 46 lawyers to partner, surpassing San Diego for the third spot in the matrix.
“The strong performance of California relative to other parts of the country partly reflects economic activity relating to technology and entrepreneurship, both in Silicon Valley and Los Angeles,” said James Park, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles and a faculty director at the school's Lowell Milken Institute for Business Law and Policy.
Park said the data is consistent with the Lowell Milken Institute's recent study that found the legal market in Los Angeles has mostly recovered from the financial crisis of 2008.
“As the legal market recovers, established firms feel more confident in making new partners,” Park said. “And the many new firms that have opened Los Angeles offices over the last decade want to expand those offices.”
In terms of practice groups, the top three areas where partners were promoted in California were litigation, intellectual property and labor and employment. Corporate and securities came in fourth, with 54 new partners focused on that practice specialty.
San Francisco-based Gordon Rees Scully Mansukhani, which earlier this month opened two new offices in Michigan and Montana, promoted 19 lawyers to partner last year, making it the largest promoter of partners in California in 2017. Intellectual property-focused Knobbe, Martens, Olson & Bear, which expanded to New York last year, followed right behind with 17 lawyers promoted to partner during that same time period.
Worldwide, Baker McKenzie promoted the most lawyers to partner last year, with 98 joining its global partnership. Kirkland & Ellis, a firm known for its large tier of nonequity partners, came close with 97 new promotions. Hogan Lovells came third with 62 lawyers promoted to partner.
(ALM Media LLC, parent company of The Recorder, does not have regional publications in New Mexico, South Dakota and Vermont, therefore announcements and related data collected on partner promotions for firms in the Am Law 100/Second Hundred and NLJ 500 through the beginning of this year is not included from those states.)
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