Many of the foreign offices at law firms with big international practices reported lower headcounts as firms tightened operations nearly everywhere. The results were part of this year’s NLJ 250, The National Law Journal‘s annual ranking of the nation’s 250 largest law firms.

Overall, attorney headcounts in 2010 fell by 1.1%. Back-to-back decreases happened only once before in the history of the NLJ 250 survey, in 1993.