Identified as one of a handful of firms based outside New York that have mounted a serious challenge to the Wall Street old guard, California’s Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher has followed posting double-digit revenue growth for 2012, with a slightly more modest but nonetheless impressive 7.4% increase in revenues for 2013.
Revenues for 2013 were $1.39bn, up from $1.29bn. This is particularly strong turnover growth, on the back of the 10.7% increase in 2012 on the $1.17bn revenues the firm posted in 2011. Successive increases in revenue has given the firm an impressive overall growth of 42% over a six-year period between 2007 and 2012.
Revenue per lawyer moved slightly up from $1.159m to $1.202m or an increase of 1%. The firm’s profit per equity partner (PEP) also rose 4.9% to $2.948m, but again this growth was slower than 2012, when PEP grew 13.7% from $2.472m to $2.812m.
The firm profited from a large chunk of litigation work last year from key client Chevron when it represented the energy giant to prevent enforcement of an $18bn Ecuadorian judgment, led by Randy Mastro, a partner in the New York office and co-chair of the firm’s litigation group.
Gibson Dunn chairman and managing partner Ken Doran said: ‘Gibson Dunn had another strong year. We appreciate our clients for entrusting us with their most significant matters – which included litigation, investigations, counselling and transactional matters. We are well-positioned around the world to continue to provide quality and cost effective counsel to our clients on their greatest legal challenges.’
The firm also made significant investment into its City base last year, hiring Penny Madden from Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom as an arbitration and disputes partner in the London office, as well as former senior director at the Office of Fair Trading Ali Nikpay, who joined the firm’s City antitrust and competition law practice as a partner in April.
jaishree.kalia@legalease.co.uk
See Taking Manhattan for more on the progressive US firms challenging the status of the Wall Street elite