To Report or Not to Report? That Is Law Firms’ Question

The new year brings a dilemma to managers of big law firms: whether to report financial profits for the previous year.

An increasing number of law firms are sharing their numbers with journalists, but some holdouts remain, the Wall Street Journal Law Blog reports. Many law firms have decided to reveal the information since the American Lawyer will go public with its own estimates in May.

The latest round of financial reports has indicated three law firms had gross revenues of more than $2 billion last year: DLA Piper; Latham & Watkins; and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom.

William Perlstein, co-managing partner of WilmerHale, told the blog the firm decided two years ago to go public with its financial figures. “It gives us the ability to make sure the numbers are accurate,” he said.

But Sullivan & Cromwell keeps its numbers private. “We’re a private partnership,” chairman H. Rodgin Cohen told the blog. “We don’t think our financial information is relevant to anyone else.”