Revenue Plunges 14 Percent for DLA Piper's U.S. Operations

DLA Piper's U.S. operations report that gross revenue declined nearly 14 percent in 2009, to just over a billion dollars. Revenue per lawyer and profits per equity partner fell only about 5 percent, due to cuts in the firm's lawyer ranks; DLA laid off 101 U.S. associates last year. Firm Chairman Frank Burch said the firm broadly cut its expenses and improved its balance sheet by increasing its reliance on paid-in partner capital, while continuing to attract high-profile laterals.

Michael D. Goldhaber

The American Lawyer

2010-02-25 12:00:00 AM

DLA Piper's U.S. operation reports that gross revenue declined nearly 14 percent in 2009, to just over a billion dollars. Revenue per lawyer and profits per equity partner fell only about 5 percent, due to cuts in the firm's lawyer ranks. (DLA Piper is structured as a set of alliances. These results reflect only the U.S. operation.)

"DLA Piper weathered the economic storm well," says firm Chairman Frank Burch, "and our overall performance during this period was solid." Burch stresses that, because the firm saw modest rises on every metric in 2008, its two-year RPL is down only 2 percent, and its two-year PPP is up 1 percent.

The other reason these measures held up is that the firm downsized. DLA laid off a total of 101 U.S. associates and 210 U.S. staff members in February and July of last year.

On a year-to-year basis, the number of lawyers fell at every level. The headcount at DLA Piper U.S. declined by 89 associates (11.6 percent), 24 equity partners (10.1 percent), and 16 non-equity partners (4.3 percent), for a total loss of 129 lawyers (9.3 percent).

Burch emphasizes that the firm broadly cut its expenses and improved its balance sheet by increasing its reliance on paid-in partner capital, while continuing to attract high-profile laterals. He cites the arrivals of Sens. Tom Daschle and Mel Martinez, SEC official Luis Mejia and H. Jeffrey Schwartz, who joined from Dechert to chair DLA's restructuring group.

"We are bullish on 2010 based on the strong position of the firm as we enter the economic recovery and expect to continue making investments where we believe there is potential for growth," says Burch. "In short, we are very confident that 2010 will be a solid year for the firm."

This report is part of The Am Law Daily's ongoing Web coverage of 2009 financial results of The Am Law 100/200. Results are preliminary. Final rankings and full results for The Am Law 100 will be published in The American Lawyer's May 2010 issue and on AmericanLawyer.com. The Am Law Second Hundred will be published in the June issue.

The final published results of last year's Am Law 100 rankings are available here; the Second Hundred results are available here.

This article first appeared on The Am Law Daily blog on AmericanLawyer.com.