MOney 2020: Firm profiles

St. Louis and Kansas City

$88.6 million

For Lewis Rice, 2019 was a year of continued stability.

Compared to 2018, the firm had a modest 1.8 percent increase in revenue, to $88.6 million.

Firm Chairman Thomas C. Erb said the firm is not focused on pursuing geographic expansion and is happy with its performance in 2019.

“We were just doing our thing,” he said. “There’s a lot to be said for stability, and we have been stable for a long time.”

Lewis Rice is unusual in that its headquarters in St. Louis and its smaller office in Kansas City effectively function as independent profit centers.

The firm saw profits of $39.8 million in its St. Louis office in 2019, divided among 58 equity partners. Meanwhile, in Kansas City, the firm saw a profit of $6.9 million. The Kansas City office had 19 equity partners in 2019.

Erb said increases in the firm’s profit per equity partner figures over the previous year came largely from attorney retirements. Firmwide, Lewis Rice had a total headcount of 156 lawyers, down 12 from the prior year.

“The denominator changed, and our expenses were down,” he said. “That’s how we drove our profits per partner higher.”

As for 2020, Erb said, the firm so far has not had to make big financial decisions in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Like all law firms, Lewis Rice is concerned about the decline in legal work stemming from court closures and case continuances, he said.

“On the corporate side, mergers and acquisition activity has come almost to a halt,” he said.

On the flip side, practice areas such as labor and employment and bankruptcy law have been busier than ever, he said.

“That’s the benefit of being a diversified, full-service law firm,” he said. “When some areas are down, others are hot.”

Erb said the firm is continuing to keep a close eye on its finances.

“We’re just going day by day,” he said, keeping tabs on attorney work flow and clients’ needs and expectations. “And just taking the temperature of the situation.”

The firm also is in the beginning stages of considering how its workers can safely return to their offices, he said. Firm employees have been working remotely since March 15. A skeleton crew of staff works periodically in the office to maintain operations, but the firm’s work largely has shifted to the home, he said.

“Our technology platforms have really held up, so we’ve been continuing to service our clients’ needs pretty seamlessly,” he said.

— Jessica Shumaker

St. Louis

$69.7 million

Though Greensfelder, Hemker & Gale had a strong year financially thanks to a sound strategic plan, how things unfolded at the firm’s top level went anything but according to plan.

After Tim Thornton died in a bicycle accident in June, John W. Dillane served as interim CEO, turning over the CEO position to Kevin McLaughlin on Feb. 1. Six weeks later, nearly everyone at the firm was working remotely because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It has not been exactly what I envisioned,” said McLaughlin, who added that in mid-January his firm started planning for the possibility of clearing technological and logistical hurdles involved with largely emptying the office in a matter of days.

“If you’d have asked me on Jan. 15 if we could have done it, I’d say ‘I really don’t know,’ but we did it,” he said.

McLaughlin said Greensfelder hasn’t laid anyone off or cut pay for those he called the firm’s most vulnerable employees, thanks in part to partners taking a deferral in pay and the firm making significant cuts to discretionary spending and taking a hard look at expenses it can control.

It’s part of an overall approach that helped Greensfelder to achieve increases across the board in 2019. Revenue rose 4 percent to $69.7 million; revenue per lawyer was up 7.7 percent to $483,800; and profits per equity partner shot up 15.5 percent to $605,600.

Focusing on the firm’s practice and industry groups also played a big role, McLaughlin said.

“Across the board, they performed extremely well, and we can see that already starting to pay off for us,” he said, pointing out that the construction, IP and corporate mergers and acquisitions practices all had outstanding years.

Looking ahead, McLaughlin said Greensfelder plans to open an office in Clayton to serve clients in the western part of the St. Louis metro area. Continuing the push for innovation, equity and inclusion, such as adding more female attorneys in leadership positions, also will help the firm in its 125th year of existence, he said.

— Scott Andera

St. Louis

$58.1 million

Sandberg, Phoenix & von Gontard CEO Bhavik Patel said his firm’s plans for growth in the past few years are finally showing promising results — an almost 24 percent increase in revenue in 2019, to be exact.

The increase, he said, “was the implementation of some of the growth we strategically put in place in 2018, because, in part, we had recognized that we were missing certain areas [in which] we could service our existing clients and new clients.”

The firm acquired a group that focused on trademark and copyright, adding new clients with the potential to offer services to them from the rest of the field. In addition, Patel said, the firm has added more team members to expand the depth of its corporate and tax practices.

During 2019, Sandberg Phoenix employed 154 fulltime lawyers, up 36 from 2018. The firm specializes in labor business, business litigation, health law and products liability, with six offices located throughout Missouri and southern Illinois.

Patel said he is proud no one in the firm was laid off or furloughed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Firm leaders are making decisions for the future of the company based on three principles: maintaining client and employee safety, continuing to serve clients and staying fiscally prudent to avoid layoffs, he said.

“We were really quick to go virtual, and we are really proud of our folks and how they rose to the occasion. They stepped up and worked from home — we know that has not been an easy thing to do,” he said. “So many people have just been so impressive with how productive they’ve been, servicing our clients’ needs at a time when our clients’ needs have increased.”

Sandberg Phoenix produced a revenue of $58.1 million in 2019, an increase of 23.9 percent from $46.9 million from 2018.  The firm also enjoyed a $17.6 million profit in 2019, an increase of 3.5 percent from $17 million the prior year.

Patel said he doesn’t believe an economic rebound from the effects of COVID-19 will happen in one year, but he is optimistic about 2021.

“We are a value-driven law firm, always have been, and it’s important to us to keep our people because that’s what makes us a great law firm,” he said. “So we are committed to keeping our people, and we will make some adjustments financially to make sure we can do that as best as we can. I look forward to having a stronger year in 2021, but no doubt 2020 will be about how we can come out of this stronger, smarter and better able to serve clients.”

— Dana Rieck

St. Louis

$27.2 million

Greg Godfrey, executive director and chief financial officer for St. Louis-based Evans & Dixon, said 2019 was “our best year ever,” and it’s easy to see why. Revenues rose 17.8 percent from the prior year, to about $27.15 million.

Revenue per lawyer was approximately $344,600, based on the firm’s full-time average attorney count of 79. But the firm’s actual headcount crossed the “century mark” in May when Evans & Dixon’s Omaha office brought on the four-attorney firm Sodoro Daly Shomaker, boosting the firm’s insurance defense practice group.

Godfrey said much of the firm’s recent revenue growth is due to organic lateral hires, and he noted that the firm continued to bring on new lawyers even during the pandemic.

“Not a single cutback from COVID-19!  I am very proud of that accomplishment,” he said.

Evans & Dixon also saw growth from its September 2019 combination with Chicago-based Roddy Law, an eight-attorney firm that focused on workers’ compensation law. The move extended Evans & Dixon’s reach to a seventh city. Other offices are in Kansas City, Springfield and Columbia in Missouri and Overland Park, Kansas.

“This expansion is a significant addition to our firm, and will enhance our ability to serve clients who have substantial interests in Chicago and Northern Illinois,” Evans & Dixon Managing Member Tim Tierney said at the time.

Evans & Dixon once was mostly a litigation firm, but for the past several years it has diversified its practice areas into environmental, labor and employment, health care, intellectual property and insurance subrogation matters, among others.

— Scott Lauck

Omaha, Nebraska

$21.2 million (Missouri)

Omaha-based Kutak Rock experienced growth of more than 3 percent in revenue between 2018 and 2019.

The firm brought in $255.9 million in 2019, up from $249.1 million in 2018. It employs 518 attorneys nationwide, up 15 from the prior year.

Kutak Rock has 55 attorneys in Missouri at its Kansas City and Springfield offices, up 10 from 2018. The state’s share of revenues was $21.2 million.

Kutak Rock enjoyed nationwide profits $131 million in 2019, with profits per equity partner of $464,800.

While founded in finance law, Kutak Rock practices in a variety of other areas as well, including business, corporate and securities, employment law, health care, public finance, litigation, real estate, technology, tax and tax credits.

The firm also has offices in Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Washington.

— Dana Rieck

Jefferson City

$4.3 million

2019 did not come without its share of hiccups for Carson & Coil, but according to Managing Partner Blake Markus, it was still a good year.

The firm brought in gross revenue of $4.3 million, a 26 percent decrease from the prior year.

Looking back a year further, Markus said the firm saw an abnormally large jump in revenue between 2017 and 2018.

“That was partially because we had a couple of seven-figure, contingency-fee cases that we were able to settle,” he said.

Markus said 2019 was more comparable to the firm’s 2017 figures. The year would have been even stronger, he said, had the firm’s office not sustained significant wind and water damage when a tornado hit Jefferson City in May 2019.

Markus said the firm’s windows were boarded up with plywood for several months following the storm.

“We got hit pretty hard by that, and we had to spend a significant amount of time out of office, which now is almost a blessing that we were able to be prepared for dealing with all the COVID-19 stuff,” he said.

The firm’s attorneys are working remotely as a result of the pandemic, and the firm also has made efforts to protect their jobs, Markus said.

“We made a promise to our employees and associate attorneys from the very beginning that we would not lay off or furlough,” he said. “If that meant we would have to dig deep into our pockets, we would. We have people who have been working for us for 30 years — there’s no way we could do that to people who have been that loyal to us.”

Markus said the firm is cutting back on marketing expenditures and general expenses to help increase cash flow. Before Congress passed the CARES Act, the firm also took out a line of credit as an emergency measure — the first time in its history to do so.

The firm jumped at the opportunity to take part in the Paycheck Protection Program to help cover payroll costs and was approved for the funds it sought.

Markus said the variety of work performed by the firm helps it to continue bringing in revenue during a time of financial uncertainty. Half of the firm’s work is contingency fee-based, while the other half is hourly work.

Attorneys who do contingency fee work haven’t seen much of an interruption, Markus said. It’s a bigger disruption for lawyers who spend much of their time at the courthouse, he said.

Markus said he is optimistic that federal aid will help to keep employees on the payroll.

“We think that the PPP loan that we obtained is going to provide us enough cushion where we won’t have to sacrifice any employees or any of our main expenditures, and that should keep the clock ticking,” he said.

— Jessica Shumaker