Missouri’s Top 20 Law Firms 2023: Thompson Coburn

Most Equitably Structured Large Firm

For a multi-office firm with 300 or more lawyers, St. Louis-based Thompson has a surprisingly flat structure.

According to Missouri Lawyers Media’s 2023 MOney section, 155 of its 377 full-time equivalent lawyers were equity partners, giving it a leverage ratio of 2.43 in fiscal year 2022.

In comparison, other big firms had ratios of more than three attorneys per equity partner. The average among the 10 current MOney firms with $100 million or more in revenue is 4.16; the highest leverage figure was at Polsinelli, which had 7.3 lawyers per equity partner.

(The lone exception is Lewis Rice, whose leverage is 1.8. However, with just 160 FTE lawyers and operations that are confined to Missouri, Lewis Rice is in a class by itself.)

Thompson Coburn had $254 million in revenue in 2022, according to MOney 2023. The firm has two offices in the St. Louis area, as well as in Chicago, New York, Washington, D.C., Dallas and Los Angeles.