Big Law Firms Still Rake It In, but Growth May Be Slowing
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The recession and post-recession have not been kind to the big law firms that serve the nation’s largest companies. The last few years have seen mass layoffs—sometimes even of partners. There have been consolidations, mergers, and the slow-motion decline of Dewey & LeBoeuf, itself the result of a merger of two old and respected New York law firms.
Last year turned out all right for most big law firms, according to the American Lawyer magazine’s ranking of the U.S.’s 100 largest-grossing firms. Average gross revenue was up 5.3 percent and average revenue per lawyer—a standard measure used to compare the performance of law firms—was up by 1.9 percent. In other words, things could have been better, and they also could have been a lot worse.