The old midtown Manhattan office of Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen & Loewy didn’t aim to impress interior designers. Rows of battered metal file cabinets crowded hallways, stacks of document boxes filled corners, the carpet was worn, and the ancient paint was smudged. And in every direction, hives of scuffed beige cubicles buzzed with workers. That office, which the firm left in May to head downtown, was designed to make money.
And that Fragomen does well. With average partner compensation of $1.89 million and revenue per lawyer of $1.085 million, it rubs shoulders, financially speaking, with Irell & Manella; Munger, Tolles & Olson; and Williams & Connolly. But its business model is completely different from those firms, and from every other Am Law 200 firm. Fragomen targets a practice area, immigration, that few firms on this list want. And, making it even more of an oddity, it works almost entirely for flat fees.
