InsideLegal

Am Law 100 Overview for 2012

The Am Law 100 2012, the annual law firm ranking of America's top 100 revenue grossing law firms compiled by ALM, has been released. Below is an overview and some key findings taken from this year's report at The American Lawyer website. For the full story, view ALM's coverage and/or purchase the entire report from ALM Legal Intelligence for $499.

"This year Baker & McKenzie tops our chart and DLA Piper, another verein, comes in second, knocking Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom out of that position. Latham & Watkins comes in fourth, with revenues topping $2 billion." 

Am Law 100 1-10 from The American Lawyer

 

• 13 firms made more than $1 billion last year. 
• Eighty firms reported gains in revenue, with the biggest gainer, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, posting 31.4 percent growth.
• Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz had the steepest decline at 4.8 percent, with Fulbright & Jaworski close behind, falling 4.5 percent. 
• Gross revenue, revenue per lawyer (RPL), and profits per partner (PPP) for The Am Law 100 rose by single digits last year.
• Eighty-three firms posted revenue gains—25 more than in the previous year.
• The terrifying days of mass layoffs seemed to be over: Firms reversed course and added to their head count.
• Equity partners grew their ranks on average after two years of flat or negative growth. 
• Both The Am Law 50 and The Am Law 51–100 reported 6 percent increases in gross, to totals of $50.9 billion and $20.1 billion, respectively.
• The Am Law 50 posted average profits per partner of $1.6 million last year—a 4.8 percent jump—versus The Am Law 51–100's 1.4 percent PPP rise, to $1.1 million.
• Gross revenue for the Am Law 100 rose 5.3 percent last year, to an average of $709,725,589. Firms continued to raise rates slightly, push work upward to partners, and see growth in their litigation, energy, and regulatory practices.
• Three of the five firms with the largest gain in gross revenue are:
  • SNR Denton (formerly Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal and Denton Wilde Sapte) (58% growth)
  • Squire Sanders (previously Squire, Sanders & Dempsey and Hammonds) (43% growth)
  • Edwards Wildman Palmer (née Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge and Wildman, Harrold, Allen & Dixon) (18% growth)
• The Am Law 100 employed 86,272 attorneys in 2011, a 3.3 percent increase from 2010.
• Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan had the biggest head count jump of a firm that was not involved in a major merger or verein combination. The Los Angeles firm added 190 lawyers—a 42 percent increase—and opened offices in Washington, D.C., and Moscow, while boosting its PPP 15 percent. The litigation powerhouse also reported the highest profit margin on our chart—64 percent.
• Mayer Brown and Hunton & Williams both showed double-digit RPL gains, too. These came on the heels of shrinking head counts—each firm shed more than 100 lawyers—a decline of 7.4 percent at Mayer Brown and 12 percent at Hunton.
• The Am Law 100 showed on average growth of 3 percent last year in profits per partner with Arnold & Porter and Alston & Bird posting PPP increases of 25 percent and 24 percent, respectively.
• Cutting into profits were technology upgrades, spring bonuses, and real estate–related expenses, according to firm leaders.
• There are four firms that are new to the list this year:
  • Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith (new to the list)
  • Barnes & Thornburg (new to the list)
  • Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton (result of a merger)
  • Wilson Elser Moskowitz Edelman & Dicker (up from the Am Law 200 last year)
• There are four firms that were on the list last year, but not included this year:
  • Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo
  • Bracewell & Giuliani
  • McKenna Long & Aldridge 
  • Husch Blackwell

Related Links:

Information/Background on the Am Law 100 Survey

Survey Methodology

What percentage of revenue do legal vendors spend on marketing? 2012 InsideLegal Vendor Marketing Survey Now Open

What percent of total revenue do legal vendors spend on marketing? What about your competitors? How does your budget compare?

You can read the results to that question from our 2008 legal vendor survey here, but better yet, you can complete the 2012 InsideLegal Vendor Marketing Survey (takes approx. 10 minutes) to find out how your marketing budget compares to other vendors, what your competitors spend on marketing, where they advertise, what market research they value, etc. In exchange for participating, you'll be the first to receive the full results report upon survey completion (for free) and we'll also immediately email you the complete 2008 survey report with data from 97 legal vendors to review in the meantime. Here are the details...

Since joining legal in 1999, we had searched for industry marketing and spending benchmarks that are commonplace in other industries that don't exist within the legal community. Knowing what your peers are spending on marketing and getting a better feel for what marketing strategies work and why is essential. For that reason, in 2008 InsideLegal conducted its inaugural Legal Vendor Marketing Survey that covered marketing budgets, the marketing mix, public relations, market research and the relevance of specific legal technology events and it yielded 97 unbiased and independent responses. We now feel the vendor community is ready for a follow-up survey - especially considering the major economic downturn we experienced. We encourage all vendors interested in getting better data surrounding their marketing and PR efforts to complete the survey and get engaged in the ensuing conversation. 

With that said, we are currently inviting legal technology vendors (CEOs, VPs, directors, marketers, managers and anyone with keen insight and understanding of their corporate marketing strategy and plan) to complete our 2012 InsideLegal Vendor Marketing Survey. We received 97 responses to our 2008 survey and we'd love to exceed that. The 42 questions will take participants 10-13 minutes to complete and all respondents (with completed surveys) will receive the final results. All results are kept completely confidential. In addition, upon completion of the survey, we will immediately send you the results report from the 2008 InsideLegal Vendor Marketing Survey. Take the time and complete the survey now and you'll have that information before LegalTech New York next week. The 2008 survey included the following, and much more, from a wide mix of legal vendor respondents:

• % of revenue spent on marketing
• what publications they advertised in
• reviews on the top legal conferences
• top categories of marketing spend
• market research recommendations

Here is a glance at the 2012 InsideLegal Vendor Marketing Survey questions:

• Marketing Budgets: How much are you spending on marketing efforts and how does this compare to other vendors?
• Marketing strategy: Who do you market to? What are your key marketing objectives?  What aspects of your marketing program have you outsourced?
• Marketing Events: How do you rank/rate the big legal events such as LegalTech and ILTA? Does your company host a User Conference? 
• Advertising: Where do you advertise? What is the mix of print vs. online?
• Public Relations: What is your media relations approach?  What is included in your (and your competitor's) PR plan? 
• Market Research: Who uses research to support marketing and sales efforts? What type of research proves most effective? What industry surveys do you and your competitors follow?

 

How Efficient is your Law Firm Help Desk? The 2nd Edition Guru Guide Tells All

Business audits and financial check ups are an important component of not only corporate life but also law firm operations. Gathering business intelligence about law firm clients, firm profitability, new business oppoortunities and the like is increasingly becoming a legal executive priority. What about as it relates to user support though? Most of the time efficiency starts and stops with your employees and their ability to swiftly and cost effectively serve clients. When is the last time you asked them about the firm's helpdesk (aka service desk) and its ability to minimize technology or workflow-related downtime and get users back up and running and focused on billables? In many scenarios, a 'don't ask, don't tell' policy exists, but in many others it has been 'don't ask, because we don't know'.

Last year, Intelliteach, a legal technology vendor and only dedicated law firm helpdesk outsourcing provider, developed the User Support Guru Guide, a PDF report that takes a close look at legal service desk metrics and key performance indicators that will help law firms, corporate legal, legal technology vendors and anyone in the space operating a helpdesk better manage their operation.

Introducing ... the User Support Guru Guide, 2nd Edition 

The data and statistics included in the 2nd edition Guru’s Guide represent over 1.2 million service desk tickets closed across a variety of law firm sizes, locations, and hardware and software configurations during the period of January 1, 2010 – June 30, 2011. The new Guru Guide report includes the following:

Top ticket categories: Over 43% of 1.2 million service desk tickets logged are specific to various versions of Microsoft Office, 22% of those pertain to Microsoft Outlook. 14% of all helpdesk calls are regarding various firm document management systems.

Conversion & upgrade impact on the service/helpdesk: Conversions cause a significant increase in volume and add additional strain to existing resources, systems and service quality. Based on Guru data, ticket volumes increased by 42% during firm-wide upgrades (average tickets per user per month increased from 2 to 2.85 during rollouts) and took an average of 90 days to return to pre-conversion levels.

Live rates: Pre-conversion, the overall live rate is 93%. If staffing is kept the same during conversions, the live rate drops by 25%. On a related note, “average wait time in the queue” jumps from 10 seconds to 81 seconds.

Tickets by origin: How are users reaching out to the service desk? 70% used the phone and 27% sent an email describing their technology issues, however it seems email is far less efficient for both the user and the service desk: 86% of live (phoned-in) service desk tickets are resolved in that first contact whereas only 7% of email tickets can be resolved in one single contact. Data indicates that, on average, tickets created via email have a lifespan 6 times longer than those originated by phone.

Tickets by weekday: Based on 1.2 million analyzed tickets, Tuesday sees the highest call volume (20.52%) and Friday (16.81%) the lowest.

The complete 16-page Guru Guide can be downloaded here and additional service desk specific data and analysis can be accessed on Intelliteach's Guru webpage.  

ILTA Members Listed 103 Vendors as Giving Exceptional Customer Support

 

As part of our 6th annual "2011 ILTA/InsideLegal Technology Purchasing Survey", which was distributed to ILTA member firms with 50+ attorneys, we asked what legal vendors provided ILTA members with exceptional customer support. The vendors with the most unsolicited mentions for providing exceptional customer support include (in alphabetical order):

Adaptive Solutions BigHand CDW Dell LexisNexis

Microsystems mindSHIFT OpenText Traveling Coaches

Other vendors receiving a mention include (in alphabetical order):

ADERANT agile360 Alexander Open Systems AppRiver Arraya CaseLogistix Cisco Communications Strategies Copitrak CORETECH Leasing Crowther Consulting Corporation CT Summation Cypress Communications D4 Discovery Data Fusion Technologies Deloitte DocuSource Education Partners EIM International Element55 EMC Equitrac Esquire Innovations EVault Evidox Geller Data Solutions Google Handshake Software Heavy Water Hildebrandt Baker Robbins HP Hubbard One/XMLAW iEnvision Technologies Information Architects  Inherent Innovative Computing Systems Insight Investments IntApp Intelliteach Interwoven Ion Resources IPM IPRO Tech iQuest Analytics Juris Keno Kozie Associates King Herpel & Associate

Kraft Kennedy KwikTag LightPath Technologies Litera Maxis Networks MicroMenders Microsoft Mimecast NetDocuments NetFusion Omega Onward Technologies Optimum Orion Law Management Systems PAETEC PayneGroup PensEra Project Leadership Associates PROLAN Network services ProtectPoint QUiVX Electronic Discovery RBRO Solutions Sage Solutions Sayers Technologies Secuit360 Sharp SoftChoice Softmart Symantec TecCon Thomson Reuters (MTS) Tikit Trinogy Systems VentureNet Verdatum VLCM VMWare WAMS Waveguide Consulting West West KM William Ives Consulting Winscribe Workshare World Software Corporation Younts Consulting Zones

ILTA and InsideLegal Release 2011 ILTA/InsideLegal Technology Purchasing Survey

           

The International Legal Technology Association (ILTA), and InsideLegal just released the findings of the 6^th annual ILTA/InsideLegal Technology Purchasing Survey (Survey). The 2011 Survey, focused on feedback from ILTA member law firms with 50 or more attorneys, covers detailed legal technology budget questions; updated information on firms’ social media preferences; an in-depth analysis of cloud computing; and sections on technology outsourcing and IT challenges.

Survey findings and analysis are being presented as part of InsideLegal’s vendor education program in conjunction with ILTA’s Annual Conference, taking place at the Gaylord Opryland in Nashville, August 21-25.

The 33 question web-based survey was distributed to approximately 684 law firms, ranging from 50 to 3,000 attorneys, and yielded 118 unique firm responses. 84% of all participating firms came from the U.S., with the remaining 16% originating from Canada, the UK, Australia, and Brazil. 85% of all survey respondents are IT Directors or C-Level executives, and 86% have direct purchasing or purchasing committee responsibility.

2011 Survey highlights include:

• Overall firm technology spending, as a percentage of firm revenue and based on per attorney spend, is still down from pre-2009 economic downturn figures.
• 57% of all responding firms spend between 2-4% of total firm revenue on technology.
• 46% of survey participants indicated spending $8K-$17K per attorney on technology purchases, the same response rate as in 2010.
• While budget slashing has been curtailed, keeping budgets balanced has taken priority with 35% indicating their budgets remained the same.
• The top five technology implementations within the last 12 months included desktop hardware; laptops/notebooks; network/server upgrades; storage area networks and virtualization.
• While ILTA’s Peer to Peer Magazine and ILTA whitepapers remain ‘favorite’ reads, 5 of the top 10 favorite publications mentioned by respondents are non-legal, general technology publications.
• Of the 52% who indicated using Twitter, many of them (27%) have an account but don’t actively use it.
• 44% of this year’s respondents reported they use outside technology consultants to aid in making purchasing decisions.
• Internet research was cited as the 2nd most popular influence in terms of aiding IT purchasing decisions (next to peer recommendations).
• 33% indicated they are implementing a cloud strategy, up from 17% in 2010 and 9% in 2009.
• 55% of surveyed firms provide IT support for employees that purchase and use their personal tablet devices.

RESOURCES:

Download the complete 16 page survey findings & analysis

Download the official press release

 

ILTA Vendor Education Program

Once again InsideLegal is working with ILTA to produce the annual ILTA Vendor Educational Program at ILTA 2011 (August 21 – 25 in Nashville). This program is for legal vendor executives and sales and marketing contacts. Below is the information on the program. 

What:  ILTA Vendor Educational Program
When:  Monday, August 22nd 2:00 pm – 5:30 pm (breakout below)
Where:  Ryman Studio PQ, Level 0

2:00 – 2:30 pm
ILTA Vendor Business Meeting
This session will include an opportunity to meet the ILTA Staff and Board members, to receive an update on conference activities, and to hear tips on working with ILTA throughout the year.
Faculty – Peggy Wechsler (ILTA)

2:30 – 3:15 pm
Advice for Selling to Law Firms 
ILTA law firms members tell you from their point of view.
Faculty – Joy Heath Rush (Sidley Austin) (Past President of ILTA) & Scott Christensen (Wildman Harrold) (ILTA President) 

3:15 – 3:45 pm
Vendor Thought Leadership  
How to establish it, maintain it and incorporate it into your social media program.
Faculty – JoAnna Forshee (InsideLegal); Donna Payne (Payne Group)

3:45 – 4:15 pm
2011 InsideLegal/ILTA Member Technology Purchasing Survey Results
Hear the highlights and get your copy.  Check out the 2010 survey here
Faculty – Jobst Elster (InsideLegal)

4:15 – 5 pm
Legal Industry Media Panel
Find out how to work with the media to get coverage for your products/services news.
Panelists – Randi Mayes (Editor, ILTA’s Peer to Peer); Monica Bay (Editor-in-Chief, Law Technology News); Charles Christian (Editor, American Legal Technology Insider) & Moderators – JoAnna Forshee & Jobst Elster (InsideLegal)

5:00 pm – 5:30 pm
Networking Reception

Set your booth up early Monday morning and join us for this very informative and interactive meeting!  If you can’t attend, send a representative from your company.

If you have not already RSVPd, please email name, title, company and email address for each participant to JoAnna Forshee at jf@insidelegal.com. 

ILTA Exhibitors Resource: Take a Peek at Last Year's Law Firm Purchasing Survey

Each year since 2006, ILTA has commissioned InsideLegal to produce the Annual ILTA Member Technology Purchasing Survey. This is a comprehensive, free market resource for ILTA members, non-ILTA firms, consultants/technologists and vendors to gauge the industry and develop a benchmark on what their peers/prospects are doing. The survey includes feedback from hundreds of ILTA law firms with 50 or more attorneys.

This is a particularly helpful document for ILTA exhibitors to review and be familiar with while planning their attendance at the upcoming conference. The updated survey for 2011 is now underway and we will be releasing that report at the upcoming ILTA Annual Conference August 21-25 in Nashville.

You can download the complete 2010 survey here, but below are some of the areas we currently cover:

• What the law firms bought in the last 12 months
• What the firms are buying in the next 12 months
• What technologies were you most excited about
• Are their budgets increasing or decreasing
• How much can they sign off for vs. what has to go to executive committee
• How much they spend per attorney on technology
• What blogs/publications do they read
• What influences/aids in their purchasing decision
• What percentage of firm revenue do they spend on technology
• Their/their users satisfaction with technologies implemented
• What consultants they are working with

If you would like to be included on the distribution list to receive the 2011 survey, sign up (for free) with your email at InsideLegal.com. You can also email JoAnna Forshee with any questions regarding the project.

 

Law Firm Technology Purchasing Annual Resource - Looking for Your Input

Each year since 2006, InsideLegal and ILTA have partnered to produce the Annual ILTA Member Technology Purchasing Survey. This is a comprehensive, free market resource for ILTA members, non-ILTA firms, consultants/technologists and vendors to gauge the industry and develop a benchmark on what their peers/prospects are doing. The survey includes feedback from hundreds of ILTA law firms with 50 or more attorneys.

Since we produce this survey for the industry, we'd like your help and input. We are open to ideas and always looking to improve and update the survey, especially when it comes to the technology areas.

Please email us any suggestions you have for questions by June 3rd and we will evaluate them for inclusion in the 2011 survey that we present at the Annual ILTA Conference in Nashville August 21-25. If you would like to be included on the distribution list to receive the 2011 survey, sign up (for free) with your email at InsideLegal.com.

You can download the complete 2010 survey here, but below are some of the areas we currently cover:

• What the law firms bought in the last 12 months
• What the firms are buying in the next 12 months
• What technologies are you most excited about
• Are budgets increasing or decreasing
• How much can they sign off for vs. what has to go to executive committee
• How much they spend per attorney on technology
• What blogs/publications do they read
• What influences/aids in their purchasing decision
• What percentage of firm revenue do they spend on technology
• Their/their users satisfaction with technologies implemented
• What consultants they are working with

In addition, every year, we dive a bit deeper into one hot topic. In the past, we have included in-depth analysis on topics including eDiscovery, virtualization, SaaS and most recently, cloud computing. Any hot topic you would like considered should be emailed our way as well.

New Global Legal IT Survey Worth Checking Out - Legal IT Landscapes

We just finished a thorough read of a new, broad based legal IT professionals technology survey definitely worth talking about. Co-produced by our friends UK-based legalsupportnetwork and Netherlands-headquartered Legal IT Professionals, the "Legal IT Landscapes" survey includes some key issues on the legal IT chief’s desk – cloud computing, tablet PCs, social media use, business intelligence (BI), document management and Microsoft SharePoint and desktop solutions – as well as how IT people see their role in terms of its status and its future. The survey includes data from 712 responses from legal IT and legal management professionals worldwide, with the bulk of the responses coming from the UK, US and mainland Europe. According to the report, the spread of law firm sizes was well represented, although 60+% of all responses came from firms with 251+ fee earners/time keepers.

We encourage all to check out the full 26 page PDF report, but below are a few of the findings that caught our attention... 

• A third of respondents said their firms are either already using social media tools to enable information sharing and collaboration, or are looking to develop this capability in 2011.
• Three quarters (73.6%) of CIO/CTOs said their firm is either “examining how to expand” tablet use or “planning how we can do more with them in 2011”. This view was shared by those at director and manager level, with IT directors the highest at over 82%.
• Big firms were most negative towards cloud – 60% of those in firms with over 501 fee-earners said the cloud has “serious compliance issues” – while the smallest firms were most positive.
• The UK leads in BI adoption by a large margin – seven in 10 respondents in UK firms said their firm uses BI, compared to just under six in 10 in mainland Europe and even fewer in the US, which reported just 58% adoption.
• Overall, nearly a half of the legal IT people we questioned (46%) said that “partners are gradually recognising that IT plays an increasingly important role and are open to more IT involvement in determining the firm’s strategy"... But overall only 15% said 2011 would see more CIOs and IT directors becoming part of law firm management boards in 2011.
• The UK had the highest number of respondents who said IT is on a “level playing field with all the other business services departments”, with over a quarter (27.6%) of respondents feeling this confident about their role...

Legal Helpdesk Statistics & Benchmarks for the Legal Industry

• How many law firm helpdesk tickets pertain to Microsoft Office questions? 
• What day of the week sees the most helpdesk tickets logged in a law firm?
• What percentage increase do law firm helpdesk departments see during a firm-wide software upgrade?

As we all know, there are more legal surveys, trend reports and law firm rankings floating out there than anyone knows what to do with. A few of them provide very valuable and timely information and findings, but others appear to be sponsored 'pay-to-play' analyst reports or surveys and less than objective industry analyses. One recently released report has gotten a lot of attention because of its 'no strings attached' availability and most importantly, applicability across various facets of the legal technology industry. The User Support Guru Guide is a 20-page PDF report that takes a close look at legal helpdesk (referred to as service desk globally) metrics and key performance indicators that will help law firms, corporate legal, legal technology vendors and anyone in the space operating a helpdesk better manage their operation. Intelliteach, a legal technology vendor and the only dedicated law firm helpdesk outsourcing provider, is the author of this invaluable resource and did a fine job of providing a statistically significant sample of metrics such as "Top ticket categories", "Conversion & upgrade impact on the service/helpdesk", "Tickets by origin" as well as "Tickets by Weekday".

The "Guru Guide" data is based on 600,000+ helpdesk tickets collected and analyzed from January to September 2010 across a variety of law firm sizes, locations and hardware/software configurations. There is some great information here independent of which side of the legal technology market fence you might sit on, so check out the dedicated Guru site or simply download the guide here. Also, if you want to go beyond this legal helpdesk primer, you can register to attend a 'Guru Guide' roadshow presented by Intelliteach CEO Lance Waagner in coordination with ILTA. The lunch-time seminars are being held in 20+ cities over the next 3-4 months. Check out the calendar here.  

[The answers to the questions above are: over 50% of tickets are Microsoft Office related; Tuesday sees the most helpdesk tickets logged; and tickets increased by 42% during firm wide upgrades.]