Adams and Reese was mentioned in a Wall Street Journal front page article this morning by Lorillard General Counsel Ron Milstein who discussed the fact that his tobacco company uses the regional law firm of Adams and Reese to do extensive work on about 4,500 state and federal civil litigation cases pending in Florida and to work with the larger national firms that Lorillard also employs.
“Not everything is a bet-your-company kind of case, and not every case warrants the big guns from New York,” Milstein said. “Smaller firms — they want you more, they value you more.”
The law firm representation is an example of the growing trend, according to a new analysis, that smaller and mid-size law firms are grabbing a bigger slice of the corporate legal work and more of the share of big-ticket litigation than in recent years. “Companies that once regularly hired the pricey titans of the legal business are sending more work to smaller, cheaper firms—and not just for routine jobs,” the article said.
Over the past three years, midsize law firms with 201-500 lawyers have nearly doubled their share of big-ticket litigation, to 41% from 22%, of the work that generates more than $1 million in legal bills. The biggest firms—with more than 750 lawyers—are losing ground. During the same time period, their share of overall legal billings dropped to 20% from 26%, while midsize firms increased their market share to 22% from 18%. The figures are based on an analysis of $10 billion in legal fees by CounselLink, a legal software provider and a division of LexisNexis.
Adams and Reese is a multidisciplinary law firm with more than 340 attorneys and advisors strategically located in 16 offices in 15 markets throughout the southern United States and Washington, D.C. American Lawyer includes Adams and Reese on its distinguished list of the nation's top law firms – “The Am Law 200.” The National Law Journal also includes the firm on the “NLJ 250” list of the nation's largest law firms.