Net income improved 7.4 percent in 2010 at Thompson & Knight, but gross revenue declined 11.2 percent compared to 2009. Gross revenue was $198.8 million in 2010 compared to $223.8 million in 2009, and net income came in at $85.3 million compared to $79.4 million in 2009. Gross revenue dipped in 2010 primarily because the Dallas-based firm ended its alliance with Brazilian firm Tauil & Chequer in late 2009, which reduced the firm’s lawyer count by about 70 lawyers, says Jeffrey Zlotky of Dallas, the firm’s managing partner. “We are now maybe a smaller, but certainly more focused, law firm and had great success in revenue per lawyer in 2010 and great success in 2010 in profits per partner,” he says The shrinking lawyer headcount between 2009 and 2010 did not affect gross revenue to a large degree, Zlotky says. “We had almost 100 lawyers fewer, but at the end of the day, we’re only down on overall revenue by 25 million,” he says. Average profits per partner were $948,000 in 2010, and revenue per lawyer came in at $623,000. PPP and RPL are calculated using a full-year average FTE (full-time equivalent) of 319 lawyers and 90 equity partners. “It was an outstanding year from the standpoint of our profits per partner. Top line revenue was down, but RPL was up, and that had a commensurate effect on our PPP,” Zlotky says. The firm also watched costs carefully in 2010, Zlotky says. Zlotky says energy work, specifically in the oil and gas area, was strong last year. “Whether that was the international oil and gas, or U.S.-based oil and gas, or corporate lawyers or tax lawyers, our firm has a great presence in the oil-and-gas industry. That propelled us in 2010,” he says. He says the firm not only handled a large variety of energy transactions, but a number were in excess of $1 billion. On the litigation side, some areas were busy and others were less so, Zlotky says. “When I look at the year in total, I think real estate was down a little bit and other transactional work . . . unrelated to the oil and gas industry was down a bit,” he says.
See ” Turning the Corner: The Worst Appears to Be Over for Texas Firms“
