Firm Profiles

Los Angeles’s oldest law firm (tracing its roots back to 1885), O’Melveny & Myers has certainly had its ups and downs in recent years. On the downside, the firm has seen its revenues decline and scores of equity partners depart since 2007, when the recession began to hit its transactional business hard. On the upside, O’Melveny remains home to one of the nation’s premier litigation departments. It was a finalist for The American Lawyer’s Litigation Department of the Year in both 2012 and 2010 (it won the competition in 2004 and earned honorable mentions in 2006 and 2008).

Another bright spot: An enthusiastic embrace of alternative fee arrangements helped O’Melveny build a highly successful relationship with Bank of America Corporation, for whom O’Melveny does all its work under a flat fee arrangement. The firm’s litigators have also won impressive results for clients including Apple Inc., American International Group, Inc., and Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. Meanwhile, the appellate department—which includes renowned U.S. Supreme Court advocate Walter Dellinger—remains one of the country’s go–to practices.

While O’Melveny’s litigation group has shrunk a little—it had 120 partners when it was named a 2012 finalist, compared to 134 partners in 2010—it still accounts for the major part of the firm’s business, and is responsible for 60 percent of O’Melveny’s gross revenue. Recently, however, certain segments on the firm’s transaction side have seen an uptick, particularly O’Melveny’s entertainment and media law department, which specializes in complex multipicture financing and media licensing deals. Asia, where 102 lawyers in five offices handle about a third of O’Melveny’s corporate work, has been a focal point, too, with the firm leveraging an increased demand for private equity, M &A, and restructuring work, among other transactions.

Although O’Melveny’s overall revenue essentially remained flat in 2011 (declining by less than 1 percent), it broke the $1 million mark in revenue per lawyer for the first time (albeit with fewer lawyers than it had prerecession). And while some rainmakers left the firm in 2011, O’Melveny soared from 114th place on The American Lawyer’s 2010 Midlevel Associates Survey to twenty–seventh place in 2011. Junior lawyers, in particular, seem buoyed by the firm’s resilience.

—Updated as of 1/1/12