Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld posted an increase in several leading financial indicators in 2011, including a 4.5% jump in gross revenues and a similar leap in profits per partner, according to our reporting.
Akin had $770 million in gross revenues for the year, and partner profits rose by 5% to almost $1.7 million.
The firm also saw a 23.4% increase in nonequity partner compensation, rising to $89.5 million. The rise in compensation for Akin’s 136 nonequity partners followed the arrival of 14 of those lawyers to the firm.
Akin in 2011 also had single-digit increases in revenue per lawyer and average compensation for all partners. Revenue per lawyer was at $975,000, a 3.7% increase. And average compensation for all partners came in at $1.2 million, a 3% jump.
Despite the respectable rise in gross revenues, the firm had looked to obtain a 6% increase, Akin Chairman R. Bruce McLean said.
With a still sluggish economy, business last year in the firm’s general corporate practice was slow, he said. But Akin was active on matters that included general litigation and international issues, helping the firm finish strong, McLean said. He noted that Akin’s international arbitration practice in Geneva, Switzerland, is “very, very busy.”
“We were very pleased where we came out,” McLean said.
In 2011, the firm also finished its work on several major matters, including a $4.5 billion sale of 6,000 Nortel Network Corp. patents and patent applications, and a $380 million settlement between the Osage Tribe and U.S. government.
Akin advised the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors of Nortel Networks Inc. on the bankruptcy auction. In the Osage settlement, the firm helped the tribe end nearly a dozen years of litigation over the federal government’s mismanagement of tribal assets.
McLean said that this year, Akin looks to post another gross revenue increase of about 4%. The firm has had “a pretty good string of success since the downturn,” he said.
This report is part of The National Law Journal‘s coverage of 2011 financial results for local Am Law 200 firms. Full results for The Am Law 200 will be published in the May and June print and online editions of The American Lawyer. Readers can also view an interactive chart for updated financial results as they are reported.
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