Legal News

Greg Jordan Nominated to Fourth Term as Reed Smith Leader

By Brian Harris

By Gina Passarella
Of the Legal Staff

Reed Smith?s partnership elected its global managing partner and chairman, Gregory B. Jordan, to his fourth-consecutive three-year term in that role.

Jordan faced a brief challenge in the race from Philadelphia partner John DiNome in a rather public contest in which DiNome questioned the direction of the firm. But the two talked and DiNome decided to withdraw his challenge leaving Jordan in an uncontested race to retain leadership of the firm. He had to be voted in by a majority of the partners.

Despite the uncontested race, the firm took the vote seriously. The intranet polls closed at 5 p.m. Monday and PricewaterhouseCoopers certified the results.

Jordan has led the firm for nine years, and, under his leadership, Reed Smith has has seen its attorney headcount grow from 600 to about 1,500 attorneys, its gross revenue rise from $268 million to $979.5 million, its revenue per lawyer move from $425,000 to $660,00 and its profits per equity partner increase from $400,000 to $940,000.

Mergers in London, Hong Kong, California and Chicago and office openings across the world have turned Reed Smith from a Pittsburgh-based firm into a much more widely known international presence.

Like many large firms in the current recession, Reed Smith was no stranger to adjusting its make-up in the face of slowing client demand. The firm has laid off more than 230 attorneys and staff since late 2008. It also shortened its summer associate program by two weeks and delayed the start of its first-year associates until January 2010. It became one of the first local firms to cut associate salaries, dropping salaries by 10 percent across most of its offices.

Reed Smith has a self-nomination process for running for managing partner, and Jordan said back in June that he had to decide whether he would run again for the term that begins in January 2010.

"I felt a responsibility during a difficult economy to continue to try to help" the firm work through a challenging time, he said in June of his decision to run.

Jordan had said the firm is very proud of what it has accomplished over the last nine years and is focused on ensuring its success through the recession and beyond. He said the strategy will remain largely unchanged in his next three years -- and that strategy is to position the firm to broadly service its major client relationships around the world.

"We are using a variety of strategies to not just get through the downturn but be positioned to be a long-term winner in this," Jordan said. "We've got this geographic diversification that really helps us. We've got a practice balance that's very attractive right now."

Reed Smith has scaled back the corporate and real estate practices, and now two-thirds of the firm's attorneys globally are focusing on litigation and restructuring work, he said.

The firm is also diving deeper into the world of alternative fee arrangements and, on the other side, is aggressively managing costs, he said.

"Those are the kinds of things I think are both critical to succeeding through the downturn and in some ways they are fundamental changes that will give us a competitive advantage even after the downturn is over," Jordan said in June.

He was traveling and unavailable for comment Tuesday.

Full post as published by The Legal Intelligencer Blog on September 22, 2009 (boomark / email).