Reversing an unprecedented slide, New Jersey’s largest firms showed a robust comeback last year in key performance categories: a strong sign that the “great recession” was little more than a temporary setback.

Total revenues and profits for the firms rebounded not only to meet but to exceed the levels of 2008: the year prior to their first decline since the New Jersey Law Journal began tracking the finances of the state’s 20 highest-grossing firms 25 years ago.