Firm Profiles

Today’s DLA Piper is a nearly 4,000 lawyer behemoth but before it was big it was gleams in the eyes of partners in firms that were the pride of Baltimore, Maryland (Piper Marbury) and Yorkshire, England (Broomhead & Neals). They set off on an astonishing two–decade run of combinations and mergers that culminated in a landmark, trans–Atlantic, three–way maneuver in 2005 which put together DLA Piper. Since then, except for the post–Lehman recession, the firm’s appetite for growth has rarely slowed. It is one of the industry’s biggest proponents of lateral hiring, picking up 87 new partners in 2011 (the most of any Am Law 100 firm). And it expanded via merger once again that year, acquiring its Australian ally, DLA Phillips Fox, and boosting its presence in the Asia–Pacific region (DLA Piper is structured as a Swiss verein, in which the U.S. and international arms maintain separate finances; The Am Law 100 survey reflects full global figures).

Not that DLA Piper misses much territory: It has 77 offices in 31 countries, including seven in the Middle East alone. Latin America has been a recent focal point for growth; the firm opened a Miami office in 2011 to serve as a base of operations, followed by the opening of a Mexico City office in early 2012.

As one might expect from a firm that has enough attorneys to populate a small town, DLA has a wide–ranging practice, though M&A work and litigation are particular strengths (indeed, the firm was a finalist in 2010 in The American Lawyer’s Product Liability Litigation Department of the Year competition). It has also been a leader on the pro bono front, placing twenty–fourth of 200 firms on our 2011 Pro Bono Report (the firm’s attorneys averaged more than 82 hours a year of volunteer legal work). DLA rates above–average scores on diversity, as well, finishing fifty–third of 194 firms on the magazine’s 2011 survey (more than 15 percent of U.S.–based lawyers are minorities).

Faring less well is associate satisfaction: DLA placed near the bottom of the pack on The American Lawyer’s 2010 Midlevel Asso?ciates Survey (124th of 137 firms), and saw only a modest improvement in 2011 (ninety–ninth of 126 firms). No doubt contributing to the less–than–stellar morale were the multi–round associate layoffs the firm conducted during the recession. Within DLA’s U.S. offices, 101 junior lawyers were let go in 2009 alone.

—Updated as of 1/1/12