The top-tier did substantially better, with the survey showing that the largest 100 firms increased revenue year on year by 2.7 per cent.

Revenue per lawyer (RPL) and profits per partner (PPP) remained essentially flat, on average, for the AmLaw 200. RPL increased 0.3 per cent, to $649,023, while PPP inched up 0.1 per cent, to $737,470. The AmLaw 100, meanwhile, had an increase of 2.6 per cent in RPL, to $894,253, and 4.0 per cent in PPP, to $1.6 million.

A difference in focus

The American Lawyer attributes the divergence in part to a difference in focus between the 100 largest firms and those ranked 101-200. The AmLaw 100, particularly firms at the top of that list, are busy with big transactional work, while the Second Hundred generally focus more on litigation, which has slowed, and have smaller clients.

Shrinking budgets

‘AmLaw 200 clients tend to be smaller, so I think budgets in that in-house world for outside counsel is shrinking,’ commented American Lawyer editor in chief Kim Kleman. She noted that cases that are typically bet-the-company are more likely to go to an AmLaw 100 firm.

Gains unevenly dispersed

To make the aggregate figures worse, Kleman said that the financial gains weren’t evenly dispersed throughout the 101-200 firm group, with the firms at the top doing ‘considerably better’ than those at the bottom.

Sources: The American Lawyer; Bloomberg BNA