On the heels of the abrupt departure of soon-to-be-chair James Woolery, Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft reported a 15.3 percent decline in profits per partner in 2014, slipping to $2.21 million. Gross revenue remained flat at $481.5 million, while revenue per lawyer decreased by 3.2 percent, to $1.07 million.
Despite the numbers, managing partner Patrick Quinn—who took over as Cadwalader’s sole leader after Woolery’s departure—says 2014 was the firm’s busiest of the past six years, with demand for its attorneys at a high since 2008. He attributes last year’s financial declines to the “normal lag in collecting” and a number of investments the firm made in 2014 in areas such as technology, attorney training, programs to promote diversity and business trend analysis.
