Gordon & Rees continues to rise among the prestigious ranks of the top 100 law firms in the country, placing 89th on The National Law Journal's survey of the 350 largest U.S. firms. The firm’s strong year also is evident on The American Lawyer’s Am Law 200 list of the nation’s top-grossing firms and its Diversity Scorecard, with Gordon & Rees placing 131st and 26th, respectively. All three surveys were released this month.
Gordon & Rees’s attorney headcount increased nearly 5 percent in 2013, lifting the firm six spots from No. 95 on last year’s NLJ 350 and placing the firm in the top 20 percent of NLJ 350 firms in terms of attorney headcount growth. On average, headcount at the NLJ 350 firms increased 3.9 percent last year.
As one of the fastest-growing law firms in the nation, Gordon & Rees has risen on the annual NLJ survey since the firm debuted on the list in 2003 at No. 186. Over the past 11 years, lawyer count has grown by more than 127 percent and the firm’s national, regional, and local practices have expanded — all without merging with other firms or incurring any long-term debt.
Winning results, diverse lateral talent and responsive client service have helped Gordon & Rees achieve its long-term goal of becoming a national, full-service firm with offices in strategic locations key to its clients and their businesses. Over the past 10 years, Gordon & Rees has opened 25 new offices, three of them in 2013: Philadelphia, Raleigh, N.C., and Charleston, S.C. Earlier this year, the firm launched an Oakland office and it plans to open more in the coming months.
This year’s NLJ 350 identifies the nation's largest legal players in 2013 ranked by the firms’ average number of full-time equivalent attorneys. Now in its 37th edition, the NLJ counted 146,618 lawyers and surveyed more than 400 firms to determine the 350 largest. The newspaper published its first national headcount survey in 1978 with 200 firms, grew it to 250 firms in 1983, and expanded it to 350 firms in 2012.
Celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, Gordon & Rees is a national litigation and business transactions firm with more than 550 lawyers and 31 offices in 20 states. Gordon & Rees has been recognized on the “BTI Client Service A-Team” survey for the past three years and has been honored as a 2014 "Go-To Law Firm" for Fortune 500 companies as well as selected for inclusion on Corporate Counsel magazine’s 2013 “Who Represents America’s Biggest Companies” list. The firm has been included on The American Lawyer’s Diversity Scorecard annually since 2005, and last year Gordon & Rees was honored as a finalist for the Minority Corporate Counsel Association’s Thomas L. Sager Award for the West Region, which recognizes a firm's commitment to the hiring, retention, and promotion of diverse attorneys.