Firm Profiles
IN-DEPTH RESEARCH REPORT
on Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP
- - Financial Information
- - Compensation
- - Billing Rates
- - Lateral Partner Moves
- - Pro bono
- - Key Contacts
Drinker Biddle & Reath
- Designation: Philadelphia
- Head Count: 572
- Gross Revenues: $392,000,000
- Revenue Per Lawyer: $685,000
- Profits Per Partner: $715,000
- Year Over Year Change: no change
While this Philadelphia–based firm goes a long way back—to 1849, to be precise—it is a relatively new entrant on The Am Law 100, making its first appearance in 2003. Fueling the firm’s growth is a series of mergers in recent years. The most significant of these was the firm’s 2007 union with Chicago’s Gardner Carton & Douglas, which gave Drinker a stronger presence in the Midwest (it now has 11 offices in the region) and added expertise in health law, employee benefits and executive compensation, hedge funds, and government and regulatory affairs, among other areas.
By some key metrics, however, Drinker, which numbers some 600 lawyers, still ranks well outside the top 100 firms. Diversity (150th place on The American Lawyer’s 2011 ranking), pro bono work (112th of 200 firms in 2011), and associate satisfaction (115th of 126 firms on our 2011 Midlevel Associates Survey) are areas ripe for improvement.
Still, there is one place where Drinker has stood out from the crowd. While other firms were deferring first–year associate start dates during the economic downturn, Drinker came up with an innovative training program, in which associates would start in the fall, as always, but spend their first months largely in a classroom setting learning the ropes from partners and other instructors. They wouldn’t be expected to bill work during that time, and in effect, the cost of training was passed from clients to the firm (no small thing for either party during a recession). The program was such a hit that Drinker continues it to this day.
Drinker has a sizable presence in the nation’s capital—with 97 lawyers, it was the forty–eighth largest D.C. office in 2011. But it is the New York office that has the most compelling—and heart–stopping—back story. It was based on the eighty–ninth floor of One World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. After a tense 14 hours, all lawyers and staff were accounted for and safe.
—Updated as of 1/1/12
Firm Rankings
| Survey | Rank | Year Over Year Change | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Am Law 100 | 74 | no change | Gross revenue |
| Am Law 200 | 74 | no change | Gross revenue |
| NLJ 250 | 70 | 6 | Lawyer head count |
| The A-List | NR | N/A | Overall excellence |
| Pro Bono Scorecard | 112 | 2 | Pro-bono commitment |
| Diversity Scorecard | 158 | 8 | Minority head count |
| Midlevel Associates Survey | 115 | 28 | Job satisfaction |
| Summer Associates Survey | 24 | 3 | Summer programs |
In the News
Ways to Craft a Construction Contract to Protect Owner
Andrew D. Klein : The Legal Intelligencer : May 22, 2013
While there is no way to eliminate all of an owner's risks on a construction project, the most important, and often most overlooked, tool to minimize those risks is the construction contract.
Regulating Political Intelligence Is Less Than Intelligent
Scott A. Coffina : The Legal Intelligencer : May 21, 2013
Last year, Congress passed an important law clarifying that members of Congress, their staff and all federal employees must abide by the same insider trading prohibitions as everyone else.
The Churn: Lateral Moves in The Am Law 200
Diane Jeantet : The Am Law Daily : May 21, 2013
K&L Gates hires two renewable energy partners in Portland; King & Spalding poaches from Bird & Bird to establish a London trade practice; and a fourth Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft lawyer leaves the firm for O'Melveny & Myers. The Churn is constant. Please send all announcements to thechurn@alm.com.
D.C. MOVES
: The National Law Journal : May 20, 2013
Drinker's Request for Depositions Denied in ExxonMobil Case
Mary Pat Gallagher : New Jersey Law Journal : May 20, 2013
Drinker Biddle & Reath has lost a nearly five-year-long battle to obtain deposition transcripts from an environmental suit against ExxonMobil for use in defending its own clients in other litigation.
Legal Industry News Developments From May 13 to 17
Michael Roach : Law Technology News : May 17, 2013
May 13 to 17 product and service news from Compliance, Content Analyst, Courtroom Connect, LexisNexis, Logik, Metalogix, Microsystems, Retro List, WD, and Workshare; deals and acquisitions involving BMC Software, Guidance Software and Computerlinks, IntApp and Sunstein Kann Murphy & Timbers, Iron Mountain and Information Storage Consolidation Company, Nuix and EDRM, and an IPO from Ubic; and people news from Drinker Discovery Solutions and Nuix.
Subsequent Mortgagees Get No Satisfaction From Forged Statement
Andrew C. Kassner and Joseph N. Argentina Jr. : The Legal Intelligencer : May 17, 2013
In Secured Lending 101, we learn that the general rule is "first in time, first in right." Well, how does one determine who is "first in time"? Generally, secured lenders may rely on state and county recording offices to determine the priority of their lien against a borrower's property.
Judge Denies OPRA Request for Depositions in ExxonMobil Case
Mary Pat Gallagher : New Jersey Law Journal : May 15, 2013
Drinker Biddle & Reath has lost a nearly five-year-long battle to obtain deposition transcripts from an environmental suit against ExxonMobil for use in defending its own clients in other litigation.
Drinker Biddle & Reath v. New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection
— Judith Nallin : New Jersey Law Journal : May 15, 2013
The unfiled discovery that plaintiff seeks is exempt from public disclosure under N.J.S.A. 47:1A-9b, and its common-law right-of-access claim is denied because the state's interests in confidentiality outweigh plaintiff's interest in disclosure.
- Adams and Reese
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- Arthur Cox
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- Baker & McKenzie
- Brown Rudnick
- Buist Moore
- Cahill Gordon & Reindel
- Clayton Utz
- Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton
- Clifford Chance
- Cooley
- Covington & Burling
- Cravath, Swaine & Moore
- Davis Polk & Wardwell
- Dewey & LeBoeuf
- Diamond McCarthy
- Dickstein Shapiro
- DLA Piper
- Dorsey & Whitney
- Dreier LLP
- Duane Morris
- Eversheds
- Fish & Richardson
- Freehills
- Freshfields
- Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer
- Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson
- Gunderson Dettmer Stough Villeneuve Franklin & Hachigian
- Herbert Smith
- Herrick, Feinstein
- Hogan Lovells
- Howrey
- Jenner & Block
- Jones Day
- K&L Gates
- Kasowitz, Benson, Torres & Friedman
- Kirkland & Ellis
- Latham & Watkins
- Linklaters
- Mallesons Stephen Jaques
- McKool Smith
- Minter Ellison
- Moore & Van Allen
- Morgan, Lewis & Bockius
- Morrison & Foerster
- Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough
- Nexsen Pruet
- Nixon Peabody
- Norton Rose
- O?Melveny & Myers
- Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart,
- Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe
- Parker Poe Adams & Bernstein
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- Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pitman
- Proskauer Rose
- Reed Smith
- Ropes & Gray
- Ruden McClosky
- Shea & Gould
- Shearman & Sterling
- Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton
- Simmons & Simmons
- Simpson Thacher & Bartlett
- Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom
- Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal
- Sullivan & Cromwell
- Vinson & Elkins
- Weil, Gotshal & Manges
- White & Case
- Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr
- Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice
