Baker & McKenzie, having already lost its position as the world’s largest-grossing law firm earlier this year to Latham & Watkins, has now slipped behind second-ranked global rival DLA Piper after announcing declines in both revenue and profit for the fiscal year ended June 20, 2015.
The Chicago-based Am Law 100 firm has repeatedly traded places with DLA Piper at the head of The American Lawyer’s Global 100 survey over the past three years. In 2013, DLA Piper overtook Baker & McKenzie, only to see the positions reversed the following year. The 2015 survey, published in The American Lawyer every October, will show the tables turned once again, with Baker & McKenzie usurped after suffering a 4.3 percent drop in gross revenue, to $2.43 billion. (DLA Piper’s gross revenue remained flat last year, at $2.48 billion, while Latham saw revenue surge 14 percent, to $2.6 billion.) The firm’s profits fell even more steeply, with average profits per equity partner tumbling 11.6 percent to a three-year low of $1.14 million.
