Lowenstein plots lawyer hiring spree in Big Law’s growth era

New Jersey’s Lowenstein Sandler LLP wants to double its headcount to as many as 700 lawyers in three to five years and sees the eventual incorporation of generative AI as quadrupling productivity.

“We know who we are. We know who we want to be,” Gary Wingens, the firm’s chairman and managing partner, said in an interview. “We don’t feel like we need to be 2,000 lawyers, but we need to make sure that we continue to punch above our weight.”

The firm wants to deepen its focus on private investment funds, technology, and life sciences—which already account for about 75% of its revenue—and expand its litigation and bankruptcy capabilities. It will use individual and group hires to bolster its roster and explore possible acquisitions of smaller firms, rather than a large scale merger, Wingens said.

Wingens also anticipates rapid advances in artificial intelligence, which he believes would allow firms to do more work with fewer lawyers. A 500-lawyer firm by the end of the decade could have the productive capacity of a firm that’s three or four times larger today, he said.

Lowenstein, whose headcount ticked up by about one-third over the past decade to roughly 400 lawyers, would have to see a massive influx of attorneys to reach its target. The firm has already made some key lateral partner hires this year and brought on Michael Caplan as its chief operations officer after he helped Goodwin Procter obtain similar growth.

Sidley No. 1 Again for Advising Companies on Investor Activism

Sidley Austin again led a ranking of big law firms helping public companies defend against shareholder activism campaigns in the first half of 2024, according to new Bloomberg data.

Sidley advised companies on 32 activist engagements with shareholder stakes totaling $9.5 billion, a figure that represents the value of shares that investors held in the public companies facing campaigns. The law firm previously secured the lead among legal advisers in 2023 after defending companies against 48 activist campaigns, according to Bloomberg’s ranking of law firms by number of shareholder engagements.

“Our pipeline is very robust and we expect continued flow of campaigns throughout the rest of the year,” said Derek Zaba, Sidley’s shareholder activism and corporate defense practice co-chair.

Vinson & Elkins took the No. 2 spot in Bloomberg’s ranking with an advisory role to companies on 19 activist engagements, representing $1.7 billion in total shareholder stakes. Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz jumped into third place for legal advisers on corporate defense, with 18 engagements totaling $5 billion in shareholder stakes.

Linklaters Surpasses £2 Billion Revenue Mark for a Record Year

UK firm Linklaters reports its highest ever revenue and pre-tax profits as the deals market counters inflation, high interest rates, and tight credit.

The firm’s revenue hit £2.1 billion ($2.69 billion) in the financial year ended April 30, 10% more than the previous year. It reported increases in pre-tax profits, profit per partners and profit per equity partner. Overall pre-tax profits hit approximately £942 million ($1.2 billion), 10% more than the previous year.

“Since Christmas, when the public markets opened up in a lot of places, we’ve been on a really good run of clients trusting us with the biggest, most complex mandates, and the ones that hit the headlines,” said Linklaters’ firmwide managing partner Paul Lewis.

The results speak to growth amid a slow deals market and an active lateral hiring market, which has seen several departures from Linklaters. Those include four partners, Matthew Hearn, Dan Schuster-Woldan, Nicole Kar, and Will Aitken-Davies, that were poached by Paul Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison over the months since September.

Thanks for reading this week’s edition of Inside Big Law. Want the biggest stories daily? Subscribe to our Business & Practice newsletter.