In Law360 Q&A, Managing Partner Andrew Detherage Highlights Firm’s Organic Growth Strategy
In a Q&A interview with Law360 Pulse, Barnes & Thornburg Managing Partner Andrew J. Detherage discussed the firm’s master plan of expanding strategically through steady, organic growth and lateral hiring rather than law firm combinations.
The Feb. 23 article was published shortly after the firm added a 35-lawyer team to its Government Services and Finance Department in multiple locations around the country, including three new offices in Baltimore, Denver and Phoenix.
Since Detherage joined in 1989, Barnes & Thornburg has grown from an Indiana firm to a national powerhouse with over 850 lawyers in 26 offices across the United States — all without undergoing a major combination.
“We’re very lawyer-focused in our leadership, and so we always felt like that was the key to success, and it’s borne out,” Detherage said. “We measure our lateral success rate on if people stay more than five years, and we’re at 90%. And we believe that’s because we are recruiting strategically.
“From the very beginning, our view was, math is not a strategy when it comes to growth. It’s not a question of what headcount and gross revenue can we get. It’s how we can build, get better and serve our clients better. We really believe the environment we have allows our firm to be successful, and we didn’t think we could maintain that by doing mergers.”
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