When Fenwick & West chair Richard Dickson looks back at his firm’s outstanding growth in profitability over the last several years, he finds the story isn’t necessarily about certain practices delivering outsized results. Corporate work and litigation have both been on an upward trajectory, but it’s easy for any law firm leader to say he’s focused on growing these twin engines.

Richard Dickson, chair of Fenwick & West. Photo: Jason Doiy/ALM

For Dickson, whose firm focuses on technology and life sciences, the credit goes a little deeper: “Often, the deliberate choices are by partners within practice areas about what work to take on,” he says.