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The Future Profitability of Law Firms
In the early summer of 2008, the American legal landscape was very different than it is today. The recently published AmLaw 100 list documented that 60 American law firms had reported profits per partner (“PPP”) of more than $1 million. This was the 10th consecutive year of record profits among the AmLaw 100. There were an astonishing 19 firms that reported PPP that exceeded $2 million and one whose PPP almost reached $5 million. The average PPP number reported for the top 100 law firms in the United States was $1.3 million.
About the same time that the 2007 AmLaw results were published, the first round of associate dismissals were announced. Not many, 100 or so in May and 150 in June. It could have been the normal “housekeeping” that most firms do in preparation for the soon-to-arrive fall class of attorneys. There were no announced dismissals in July, and August saw another 100 or so associates let go by their firms.
But then the economic landscape changed. The U.S. economy appeared to be in free fall. Each day seemed to bring a new revelation about bad subprime mortgages, weakly capitalized banks, and overpaid insurance executives. The nadir of the crisis was Dec. 11 when Bernard Madoff made $50 billion disappear faster than David Copperfield ever dreamed. The big law firms, while slow to react, made up for it quickly. In November and December more than 200 AmLaw 100 attorneys were let go each month. January saw 750 attorneys lose their jobs, and they were joined on the unemployment line by another 900 attorneys in February. March was not the cruelest month, but still another 700 attorneys lost their jobs before the 31st rolled around.
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