Many of the nation’s largest plaintiffs firms shed associates and reduced their partner head count last year as COVID-19 forced courts to pull civil trials off their calendars while pausing swaths of litigation.

Nearly all of the plaintiff-focused firms in the NLJ 500 decreased in size in 2020 compared with the previous year. Several firms’ head counts only decreased by a percentage point or two, a dip they attributed to natural turnover as staff took new positions, leaving vacancies that are in the process of being filled.