Law firm mergers and acquisitions are on track to reach an all-time high in 2017, according to the latest report released by legal consulting firm Altman Weil. So far this year, there have been 52 combinations announced, including 24 in the second quarter, topping the prior mid-year peak of 48 in 2016.

Altman Weil’s MergerLine report revealed acquisitions of firms with twenty or fewer lawyers accounted for 86% of all deals in the first quarter and 71% in the second quarter of 2017. For these deals, acquirers’ primary focus was the Midwest, including firms in Ohio, Indiana, Missouri and Michigan, and the Southern US, including firms in Florida and Texas.

“The chief driver of combinations is the battle for market share that’s being waged in response to flat or decreasing demand for law firm services, and we don’t expect that to change any time soon,” said Altman Weil principal, Eric Seegar. “Law firms of all sizes are vying to acquire new clients, expand into new markets, and upgrade their brands through quality combinations.  Many of the largest U.S. firms are now routinely looking outside the domestic market for those opportunities.”

See the full report and article on The American Lawyer.

Contact Bill Sugarman for more information.

Law360 released its fourth annual Glass Ceiling Report, which surveyed 300 law firms on gender diversity and ranked firms based on the percentage of female equity partners in the United States.

According to the report, women make up just 34% of all attorneys and 23% of partners in law firms across the country. Law360’s editor in chief, Anne Urda, notes, “Intentions among law firms are good, and some slight progress has been made, but overall the numbers indicate that law firms need to do much more to close the gap among male and female associates and partners.”

Firms with the highest levels of female equity partners tend to focus on building a clear pipeline to equity partnership for women and offering benefits like work schedule flexibility, mentorship programs and greater leadership opportunities in order to retain top-performing attorneys.

Among the 300 law firms surveyed, small firms (20-149 attorneys) had the highest percentage of female equity partners, including Adelson Testan (60%), Walsworth (57.1%), Stokes Lawrence (43.5%), Berry Appleman (42.9%) and Verrill Dana (41.5%).

For medium to large sized firms (150-599 attorneys), the top five best firms for female partners were Fragomen (40.7%), Miller Nash (37.7%), Hanson Bridgett (37.1%), FordHarrison (33.3%) and Chapman & Cutler (31.2%).

In the biggest category of ‘Big Law’ firms (600+ attorneys), firms with the highest percentage of female equity partners were Littler (28.5%), Faegre Baker (27.2%), Jackson Lewis (26.1%), WilmerHale (25.1%), and Ropes & Gray (25%).

See the full article and rankings on Law360.

(Subscription required to access full articles.)

Contact Bill Sugarman for more information.

The gap in gender parity in the legal industry remains somewhat stagnant, but there are Big Law firms that have adopted new cultures and strategies to attract and retain women lawyers. The National Law Journal highlights those firms in their annual survey of the top 100 firms with the highest number of women attorneys. The rankings were based on survey responses from 254 of the 350 largest U.S. law firms.

New York-based Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen & Loewry is the leading firm for women again, a repeating factor since 2011. With 62 percent of its attorneys being women, and 48 percent of partners, Fragomen has been a frontrunner in retaining women attorneys for years. Partner, Cynthia Lange, who joined the firm in 1986, tells the American Lawyer, “It starts from the top. Even 30 years ago, they were fabulous at recognizing women.” Behind Fragomen, the top 5 on the list are: Minneapolis-based Foley & Mansfield; Ford & Harrison; Constangy, Brooks, Smith & Prophete of Atlanta; and Best Best & Krieger of Riverside, California.

Employment firm Jackson Lewis, at No. 8, has promoted a number of part-time attorneys to partners, says Stephanie Adler-Paindiris, co-leader of the firms’ class actions and complex litigation practice group. Adler-Paindiris explains, “There’s an understanding from above about the importance of family and people’s lives.”

Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison deputy chair, Valeria Radwaner, explains her firm’s outlook, “We have to give women visibility in the community, encourage them to take leadership positions and run practice groups. We encourage them to say, ‘Yes.’ That’s how they become leaders.” Paul Weiss at No. 31 is the highest ranked Big Law firm in New York that made the list, with 40 percent of its attorneys being women and 22 percent of partners. The firm has created programs designed to motivate women attorneys and develop their careers. Radwaner notes that programs alone don’t create meaningful change. She says, “At the end of the day, the program mixed with the tone from the top is really what I think makes the difference.”

See more of the highlights from the 2016 NLJ Top 100 Firms for Women on The American Lawyer.

Contact Bill Sugarman for more information.

The National Law Journal released the very first NLJ 500 this year: a compilation of the 500 largest U.S.-based law firms. This year, in addition to the annual report of the top 350 largest firms, NLJ included 150 more law firms and ranked those into two tiers: “mid-tier” and “on-the-cusp-of-Big-Law” firms.

Dentons, previously one of the largest U.S. firms, has been removed from the NLJ 500 due to its expansion and large number of attorneys in China. In order to make the cut, firms must have more lawyers in the U.S. than in any other country. It comes as no surprise that Baker & McKenzie is leading the chart for a second year with a mass of 4,363 lawyers.

San Francisco based Farella Braun + Martel just made the cut making them the smallest firm in the top 350. Overall, the smallest firms that made the NLJ 500 were Davis, Brown, Koehn, Shors & Roberts in Des Moines; Goldberg Kohn in Chicago; and BatesCarey in Chicago. The most shocking decline on the NLJ 500 for 2015 was Kenyon & Kenyon’s 29% decrease in head count of attorneys.

For more information, contact Bill Sugarman.

Law.com reported that only 34% of lawyers in large firms today are women. That statistic has faced less than a 1% increase over the last five years, according to ALM’s Female Scorecard. Senior ALM Analyst, Nicholas Bruch, reported that only 18% of equity partners and a shocking 8% of lawyers making over half-a-million dollars are women. In a goal to meet gender parity, large firms are making slow progress–but not all hope is lost.

Despite the slow moving figures, there is supporting data implying that Big Law will reach the goal of gender parity, eventually. According to Law.com, ALM reported recent figures that women account for 47% of law school graduates. This figure is generally in line with the climbing 45% of entry-level associates at large firms that are women. The increasing numbers prove that Big Law’s strategies to hire more women are effective at this phase. Attacking the issue at entry-level is key for large firms to fix the problem from occurring further down the road.

ALM conducted a Women in Leadership Survey which revealed that one in four members on key governing committees are women. This indicates that firm leaders are making a noticeable effort to place female partners in top leadership roles. The 18% of females in equity roles to choose from seems to be what is slowing down efforts.

Firms are making significant efforts to hire females at the entry-level and at the most senior level, but the focus should be to retain women in Big Law and transition female associates into partners. Firms should target two critical pieces: supporting female career progression and developing a plan to gather data on why females are leaving the firm or the industry. According to ALM Intelligence, women don’t necessarily leave the legal industry at a specific milestone in their lives or careers. So, the assumption that women are leaving the law after having a child or during key partner promotion years is largely false. Data reveals that women are leaving the law at a slow and consistent rate–an indicator that law firms must creatively solve the issue of female retention.

Law.com suggests that a single, clear and obvious solution is not likely to be found. Leaders in large firms should take a broader approach and focus on developing an assortment of strategies to retain and promote female lawyers. Some firms have started implementing mentorship and coaching programs to target women in crucial transition years. Even though the results of such programs have yet to surface, the efforts to retain females in Big Law are undeniably progressing.

For more information, contact Bill Sugarman.

The American Lawyer just released the results of the most recent Am Law 100, their annual financial report of the top 100 U.S. law firms.  Overall, the data revealed only slight increases for the firms overall, with the average profits per partner increasing 4 percent since 2014 and the total net income up by 3.3 percent.  Latham & Watkins claimed the number one slot for gross revenue for the second year in the row, with an impressive $2.65 billion over the last-place contender’s $332 million (Kramer Levin).  The ever-growing Polsinelli tied with Locke Lord for the biggest change in their Am Law 100 rankings, each increasing by twelve spots from the previous year.  And predictably, major big law firms Latham, Greenberg Traurig, Mayer Brown, and Reed Smith worked their attorneys to the bone to claim the most billable hours in 2015, with DLA Piper leading the pack at over 5.5 million hours–an astonishing 2 million-plus hours over the second-place Latham.

See more of the highlights from the 2016 Am Law 100 on The American Lawyer.

Contact Bill Sugarman for more information.

Mega-firm Reed Smith had a rough year in 2015, The American Lawyer reports–a year that perhaps led to the highly publicized 45-lawyer layoff in January 2016.  According to their annual Am Law 100 report, gross revenue fell 2.5 percent, revenue per lawyer went down by 1.4 percent, and profits per partner declined an alarming 8.3 percent.

However, global managing partner Sandy Thomas called the results “solid,” and told press that the layoffs were simply an “efficiency measure,” although he also referred to the slumping commodities market, noting that “we are not immune,” (as quoted in The American Lawyer).

Schiff Hardin laid off seven current associates and retracted offers for four incoming associates yesterday, reports the ABA Journal.  This comes after the widely publicized mass exodus of 22 partners in January, which included Schiff’s former managing partner.

Schiff isn’t the only big law firm that’s conducted massive layoffs this year.  Reed Smith and Baker Donelson have also cut large numbers of attorneys and support staff in the recent months.  In January, Reed Smith, the 19th highest-grossing law firm in the U.S. last year, laid off 45 attorneys and an unspecified number of staff, announced the Wall Street Journal.

Schiff Hardin managing partner Marci Eisenstein said in her statement that, despite the layoffs, the firm is “coming off a record year,” and are anticipating “another strong year in 2016,” (as reported by Above the Law).

Finding a foothold in the Chicago market isn’t as easy for the elite ‘big law’ firms as they might like to believe, reports Claire Bushey of Crain’s Chicago.

The article looks at three national firms that had big aspirations for growth upon their respective moves to Chicago: Paul Hastings, Ropes & Gray, and Morgan Lewis & Bockius.  New York-based Paul Hastings, for example, opened its Chicago doors in 2006, initially recruiting top partner talent and reporting goals of a 100+ lawyer office.  Ten years later, the office boasts of only 42 attorneys.  Former managing partner of the office, Rick Chesley, says that its the tough Chicago competition that forces firms to really consider their client base: “If you haven’t thought about who your clients are, who you’re going to compete with…you’re going to fail,” he said (as quoted in Crain’s).

Similarly, Boston-based Ropes & Gray opened eight years ago with predictions of a 100-lawyer headcount within two years.  The Chicago office has only 64 attorneys to date–a stark contrast to their London office, which went from 2 attorneys at their 2010 opening to 129 today.

Anthony Nasharr, Managing Partner of the Chicago office of Polsinelli, believes that firms looking to expand into Chicago need to be “chasing work characteristic to the city, like agribusiness or financial services” (as quoted in Crain’s).  Polsinelli, a firm headquartered in Kansas City, has proven that they have the right approach for Chicago growth, successfully growing their six-attorney starter office to almost 100 in just eight years.  Nasharr also notes that a new Chicago office requires strong support from their headquarters to help the office thrive–like supplying the funds to bring on quality lateral partners.  Much Shelist Managing Partner Mitchell Roth agrees that the need for good talent is critical to success in any major market, but argues that acquiring that talent can prove difficult: “To open a five-person office and expand to 100 in one or two years, when everyone’s trying to buy the exact same talent?  It’s next to impossible,” he says (as quoted in Crain’s).

Despite the difficulties, six out-of-town firms merged with Chicago firms last year–more than in any other city, Crain’s reports.  However, former Kirkland & Ellis partner Steven Harper warns the newcomers not to be fooled into thinking their high-profile reputations will be their be-all, end-all for attracting clients: “These firms believe that…clients will flock to the brand.  Well, maybe not.  Probably not,” he cautions (as quoted in Crain’s).