Firm Profiles

For most of its history—and it’s a long one, stretching back to 1885—King & Spalding was a regional leader, one of the Southeast’s top law firms. Sure, it had built a top–flight litigation group (largely thanks to clients from the automotive, pharmaceutical, and tobacco industries), and even opened a Washington, D.C., office in the late 1970s to support its growing food and drug practice. But for the most part, you didn’t think King & Spalding without thinking Atlanta.

That changed as the millennium came to a close and the firm’s strategy—and ambitions—shifted. To support more transactional work, King & Spalding opened a New York office in 1990. To expand its energy, finance, and corporate practices into Europe, it opened a London office in 2003. More outposts came in short order, including three in the Middle East, where King & Spalding now has its highest concentration of clients outside of the United States and has developed major practice areas in Islamic finance, international arbitration, and private equity (in all, King & Spalding has 17 offices across the globe, with nearly 800 lawyers, including some 150 equity partners).

The growth hasn’t come without some hiccups. The firm—thirty–third on the 2011 Am Law 100 list with $718 million in gross revenue—laid off over 100 people (including several dozen associates and counsel) at the height of the recession in 2009. Its rankings on The American Lawyer’s Midlevel Associates Survey have left ample room for improvement—coming in 116th in 2010 and ninety–sixth in 2011—as has its finish on the magazine’s pro bono scorecard (ninety–second of 200 firms in 2011). It also suffered some very public hits—from all sides of the political spectrum—when it took, then withdrew from, a 2011 assignment from the U.S. House of Representatives to defend the Defense of Marriage Act. (After the firm’s withdrawal, Paul Clement, the head of the firm’s appellate practice, resigned in protest.) There have been bright spots, too. King & Spalding’s product liability practice has grown into one of the nation’s largest, and accounted for 19 percent of the firm’s revenues in 2010. It was a finalist as The American Lawyer’s top product liability department in both 2004 and 2012 (for overall litigation the firm earned honorable mentions in 2006, 2008, and 2012). The health care law group, too, has shone. Numbering more than 200 lawyers, it is one of the nation’s largest such departments and has helped to shape recent health care reform laws. In the process, it has kept the firm healthy, too.

—Updated as of 1/1/12