Firm Finance: Fulbright & Jaworski

Houston-based Fulbright & Jaworski posted net income of $276.9 million in 2010, an increase of 2.6 percent compared to $270 million in 2009. Last year, gross revenue decreased to $625.4 million, down 2.6 percent from $642.3 million in 2009. A lower lawyer count is the primary reason for the year-to-year decline in gross revenue, says Steven B. Pfeiffer, chairman of the firm’s executive committee. “Between early- to mid-2008, through the end of 2010, we reduced the number of lawyers in the firm by about 100,” Pfeiffer says. The reduction was mostly through attrition and by hiring fewer first-year lawyers, he adds. Average profits per partner came in at $876,000 in 2010 and revenue per lawyer was $743,000. Those numbers are based on a full-year average FTE (full-time equivalent) of 842 lawyers and 316 equity partners in 2010. A handful of practice areas saw a revenue increase in 2010 compared to 2009, including public finance and bankruptcy/insolvency, Pfeiffer says. The firm also experienced “substantial growth in work with financial institutions in Texas, the U.S. and in London,” he says. The firm paid support staff a bonus in 2010, which decreased profits per partner, and reserved funds for upcoming expenses, such as a planned 2011 move of its Austin office, he says. “I think the feeling at Fulbright is it [2010 income] was a very good result but achieved in our own way,” Pfeiffer says. The Build America Bonds program created under the American Recovery and Investment Act of 2009 was the driver behind a large jump in public finance activity during 2010, says Dallas partner Robert D. Dransfield, head of the firm’s public finance department. Public entities moved their 2011 and 2012 projects to 2010 to take advantage of the program’s federally subsidized interest rates available last year, he says. Firm lawyers were underwriters’ counsel for projects with community college districts in California and a transportation project in Texas for Dallas Area Rapid Transit, he says. The firm has about 40 bond lawyers and seven tax lawyers who do almost nothing but tax-exempt bond work, he says.