The Billionaire Law Firms: And the $3 Billion King of the Pile -

Cracking $3 billion in law firm revenues is a top effort on anyone’s count, but for Latham & Watkins there’s more to come, they say.

The firm is currently Number 1 on Am Law 100 with $3.064 in 2017 revenues as reported by Law.com, with a seven percent increase in attorney numbers and with profits per partner at $3.25 million.

The global legal giant boosted its revenue by 8.5 per cent to $3.064bn in 2017.

According to the firm, there is more on the way in terms of revenue and profit growth, with Chief Operating Officer LeeAnn Black saying there was “a lot of strategic thought and effort and execution to actually get all the pieces in place” for its “1-2-3” punch of reaching $1 billion (2003), $2 billion (2007) and $3 billion (2017).

London-based vice chair Richard Trobman told Law.com that the firm was poised to keep building on its recent growth: “We’re convinced that we’ve only begun to benefit from all the investment that we’ve put in over the years,” he said.

What has the firm done to achieve that growth?

One of the keys has been a strong emphasis on equally strong lateral hires, across the firm’s global network.

In London, Madrid, San Francisco, New York . . Lathams have hired top lawyers from rival firms to build their practice and client base.

They have also focused on building their trial and disputes practice, which has paid dividends for the firm.

The net result of the moves has been to solidify the firm’s ‘one stop shop’ approach for global corporte clients who find the depth of talent globally easier to deal with in terms of international legal work.

For instance, the 25 largest Latham clients have, according to Law.com, engaged Latham lawyers from an average of 21 of Latham’s 31 offices. Its top 50 clients have engaged lawyers from an average of 19 offices.

While some corners of the legal market are concerned by client efforts to disaggregate legal services, Trobman said Latham believes the firm’s clients want one law firm to provide a well-rounded range of practices.
“Given their choice, our view is that most clients and our clients would prefer to have one stop,” Trobman said.

The firm also says 100 per cent of its US lawyers and 83 per cent of the lawyers in Europe, the Middle East and Asia worked on pro bono matters last year, totaling more than 236,000 hours valued at more than $180m.

The Other Billionaires

What of the other billion dollar law firms that might be seen as contenders for Latham’s crown?

Despite increased competition, rising costs and an overall malaise affecting the legal industry, there are still large firms making increasing amounts of money.

The nine firms that have entered the billion dollar rankings include:

he Billion-Dollar Club:

Eversheds Sutherland $1.03 Billion
Goodwin Procter $1.032 Billion
Akin Gump $1.039 Billion
Morrison & Foerster $1.06 Billion
Cooley $1.07 Billion
Paul Weiss $1.3 Billion
Gibson Dunn $1.64 Billion
White & Case $1.8 Billion
Sidley Austin $2.036 Billion

The continued growth of those firms entering the billionaire law firm club will continue – but that doesn’t spell the end of the legal industry’s overall continued efforts to stimulate growth across the board. It just means that Big Law is getting bigger still – and richer.