For the second straight year, revenues at Dechert dropped in 2010 although profits continued to go up. During the same period the number of equity partners held steady but total headcount dropped by over 8% from 2008 to 2009 and 12% from 2009 and 2010. According to Dechert’s Chairman Barton Winkour, the headcount reduction occurred almost entirely in mid 2009, but that means those lawyers were counted for half a year in 2009 and not at all in 2010.
Total profits at the firms were up close to 1% and profits per partner went from $1.96 million to $2.01 million. Winkour attributes the increase in profitability to the firm’s ability to change its profile along with the changing legal landscape. Reducing the number of lawyers involved in real estate law while adding a financial institutions practice group, for example.
With offices throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia, Dechert LLP is an international law firm focused on financial services and asset management, corporate and securities, tax law, business restructuring and reorganization, complex litigation and international arbitration, life sciences, labor and employment, intellectual property, and finance and real estate.