Silicon Valley continued to pump a cascade of cash into the Bay Area’s biggest law firms in 1999, powering soaring revenues and profits for all but a few of the top 10 firms, a survey by The Recorder has found. Led by blockbuster growth at tech leaders Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati and Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison, total revenues for the 10 largest Bay Area firms increased 20 percent over 1998.
Gross revenues at Palo Alto’s Wilson Sonsini skyrocketed 30 percent and profits per partner at the firm jumped 13 percent to $700,000. But it was San Francisco’s Brobeck, fueled in part by a big increase in partner-to-associate leverage, that saw the highest profits per partner — $850,000, up from $605,000.
