Firm Profiles

While its roots go back to 1834, McGuireWoods needed 150 years before it branched out beyond Virginia (it opened a Washington, D.C., office in 1984). But once it did, the firm did so in style, merging with a long list of other firms—many of them small, regional outfits, but others, like 155–lawyer Ross & Hardies, with which McGuireWoods merged in 2003, boast substantial multioffice practices in prime locations like New York and Chicago. Today McGuireWoods counts nearly 900 lawyers in 19 offices (including Brussels and London). It ranked fifty–fourth on the 2011 Am Law 100, with $532 million in revenue.

The Richmond–based firm may regularly fall outside the top 100 firms on profits per partner and average partner compensation, but it fared better than many of its peers during the economic crisis. Indeed, McGuireWoods ranked third of 84 firms on The American Lawyer’s Recession Performance Index, which looked at how firms performed between 2007 and 2009, a particularly trying period for the industry. During that period of time, revenue at McGuireWoods actually increased by a compound annual growth rate of 11 percent (lawyer head count and profits per partner made healthy gains as well). The firm’s 2011 revenue jumped by 7 percent over the previous year, and net income by a robust 9 percent, bolstered by busy health care, energy, government investigations, and transactional practices.

Not faring quite as well is the firm’s record on diversity. It ranked 128th of 194 firms in 2011, with minorities accounting for less than 6 percent of U.S. partners. Pro bono marks are middling, too: McGuireWoods came in 144th of 200 firms on The American Lawyer’s 2011 survey, with the average lawyer performing just 22 hours of annual pro bono work (more than 100 hours below the industry’s leaders).

The firm has been an enthusiastic proponent of alternative fee arrangements—a factor that may have served it well during the downturn. It has also created a D.C.–based public affairs arm, McGuireWoods Consulting, to assist clients who want to bend the ears of legislators. Among the group’s advisers is former Indiana governor and senator Evan Bayh. One person you probably won’t spot around the McGuireWoods offices, however, is golfer Tiger Woods. The firm represented his ex–wife in their divorce.

—Updated as of 1/1/12