Keeping up with their counterparts in the Am Law 100, the Second Hundred in 2019 saw increases in every key financial metric—and even managed to match the growth of the top tier in gross revenue (5%), revenue per lawyer (2.9%) and profits per equity partner (4.6%).

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Within those numbers, there were pronounced differences among different groups in the Second Hundred, as firms ranked 151 through 200 nearly doubled the growth of those ranked 101 through 150, posting a 7.2% revenue increase on average, compared with 3.9% for the top half of the list. The gap serves as a reminder that although firms may be grouped together, they are often competing in very different aspects of the same game, and operating in a more modest revenue range might just be a winning formula for staying power.