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Nation's big law firms have gotten even bigger this year

However, fewer of the largest firms are based in Florida, the National Law Journal's annual ranking shows.

By MARK ALBRIGHT
Published November 30, 2005

The growth of the mega-law firms returned in 2005 after a two-year lull, but fewer of the biggest firms are based in Florida.

That's according to the annual ranking of the nation's 250 biggest firms compiled by National Law Journal , which estimated that the head count at the big firms grew 4 percent to 116,671. That is the highest growth rate in four years.

But consolidation, shakeups and breakups continued to ripple through the list.

The only top-10 firm based in Florida now is Miami's Greenberg Traurig LLP, with 1,482 lawyers in its flock. Greenberg added 185 lawyers but remained locked into eighth place. Holland & Knight, a Tampa firm with an administrative office in Lakeland and a managing partner in New York, slipped to 11th with a stable of 1,224 lawyers. Missing was the once silk-stocking Miami firm of Steel, Hector & Davis, which has been absorbed by Squire, Sanders & Dempsey, a Cleveland firm with 804 lawyers that ranks 33rd.

If size matters, however, DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary US, the nation's second-biggest firm with 3,158 lawyers after two recent mergers, has long had a Tampa office. So does Foley & Lardner, a Milwaukee firm with 935 lawyers that is the 24th largest.

Also, Miami-based Adorno & Yoss (No. 169 nationally) is the nation's biggest minority-owned firm. Twenty percent of its partners are Hispanic, 17 percent are African-American and 40 percent are women.

Other large Tampa firms to make the list are Carlton Fields, 179th with 225 lawyers, and Fowler White Boggs and Banker, 181st with 224 lawyers.

--Mark Albright can be reached at albright@sptimes.com or 727 893-8252.

[Last modified November 30, 2005, 02:15:38]