Firm Profiles

Until 2007, Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal was a steady Chicago firm perhaps best known as the home of Scott Turow, the top–selling novelist, and counsel to old–line legacy Midwestern companies such as All State Insurance and McDonald’s. That changed rather quickly after Eliot Portnoy, a Rhodes scholar turned Washington lobbyist, became the head of the firm just five years after he joined as a partner. Two years later the firm absorbed about 100 lawyers from Thacher Proffitt & Wood, a New York securitization firm badly bruised by the economic slowdown. The next year, Sonnenschein merged with the U.K.–based Denton Wilde & Sapte and overnight SNR Denton’s largest office was in London and it boasted of strengths in Denton’s Middle East, Africa, and Asia–Pacific offices. As law firm transformations go, this was pretty quick.

A full–service firm, SNR Denton’s practice areas include litigation, bankruptcy, energy, insurance, international trade, labor and employment, M&A, project finance, and public policy. Intellectual property and real estate work have seen particular growth in recent years.

Profits per partner trail the bulk of firms within The Am Law 100, as does SNR Denton’s average partner compensation. Yet it is the junior lawyers whose morale could use a boost: The firm rated near the bottom of The American Lawyer’s 2011 Midlevel Associates Survey, coming in 115th of 126 firms. Nor does SNR Denton lead the pack on diversity: With minorities constituting less than 12 percent of the U.S. attorney roster—and less than 7 percent of the U.S. partnership—the firm placed 107th of 194 firms on the magazine’s 2011 Diversity Scorecard.

The firm fares better on pro bono work. SNR Denton scored well above average on our 2011 report card, with the firm’s lawyers averaging almost 60 hours a year of volunteer legal work.

Like some other firms that have recently completed transatlantic tie–ups, such as DLA Piper and Baker & McKenzie, SNR Denton has adopted a Swiss verein structure, in which the U.S. and international arms maintain separate finances (the Am Law 100 survey reflects full global figures). Yet, for good or ill, the U.K. partners have already seen one change that has impacted their wallets: The combined firm has eliminated Denton’s old lockstep compensation scheme and adopted Sonnenschein’s merit–based system.

—Updated as of 1/1/12