Updated at 6:46 p.m.
Reflecting a stagnant legal market in Washington, Patton Boggs posted a paltry $2 million increase in gross revenues in fiscal 2011, to $339.5 million, according to the firm's response to a new Am Law 200 survey. That was just a .6% gross revenue jump from the year before.
And profits per partner dropped from 2010-2011, from $885,000 to $830,000, a 6.2% hit. The average compensation for all partners decreased 6.8%, to $615,000.
Overall, compensation for equity partners, or net income, was cut to $90 million, a 3.7% decrease. Nonequity compensation was flat at $56.5 million.
Patton also reported 495 lawyers in fiscal 2011 — a 3.3% drop from 512 attorneys the firm employed in 2010. But the cut in lawyers didn’t touch partners, whose ranks jumped from 228 to 237. Of the nine new partners, two are equity and seven are nonequity.
Patton Chairman Thomas Boggs Jr. couldn’t be reached for an immediate comment.
But Managing Partner Edward Newberry wrote in an e-mail, sent soon after the initial publication of this report, that some of the numbers the firm had first sent to The American Lawyer were incorrect.
Newberry wrote that the number of equity partners in 2011 was 104 instead of 108, which then would have affected the firm's profits per partner — which, using the new figure, dropped to only $865,000. The new equity partner figure would also mean that average compensation for all partners had decreased to only $629,000, also a smaller decrease than the firm initially reported.
“The firm had a very solid year, made budget and had its strongest fourth quarter ever on revenue and fees billed, and among its strongest quarters ever on demand,” Newberry wrote. “Revenue per lawyer of $685,000 is the strongest in the firm's history as well.”
The National Law Journal will continue reporting this story.
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