The "Globes" Dun's 100 law firms rankings, published today, shows slower growth in Israel's 20 largest law firms. While the number of lawyers working at the 20 largest law firms rose by 198 in 2013, a 9% increase, the number employed went up by only 135 in 2014, a more moderate 6% rise.
The figures also show that some of the most prominent law firms did not grow in 2014, and a few of them even shrank. At the same time, a number of firms grew substantially. The Herzog, Fox, and Neeman firm was ranked in first place with 265 lawyers, 36 more than in 2013. Meitar, Liquornik, Geva, Leshem,Tal was in second place with 250 lawyers, after adding 19 more during 2014. Goldfarb Seligman was in third place with 210 lawyers, 12 fewer than last year.
The 2011 Goldfarb-Seligman merger, considered the largest merger in the history of the Israeli legal sector, created a firm with 200 lawyers, making it the largest firm at the time. The figures, however, raise a question: was this merger as successful as expected? Both firms had overlapping departments, and some of the departments in the merged company wound up with too many lawyers. In addition, according to reports consistent with the Globes Dun's 100 findings, few interns from Goldfarb went on working for the firm last year after becoming full lawyers..
Another factor working to the firm's disadvantage was the reduced activity by IDB Development Corporation Ltd. (TASE:IDBD) and the new leadership at its head. During the "reign" of Nochi Dankner, IDB was considered an important and prominent client of Goldfarb. Today, a large proportion of the group's legal affairs, which have in any case been greatly reduced, are handled by other law firms.
The fourth largest firm is Fischer, Behar, Chen, Well, Orion, & Co. , which employs 165 lawyers, after expanding its staff by three lawyers during the year.
Yigal Arnon & Co. was ranked fifth with 146 lawyers, after adding seven to its total.
Gornitzky & Co., on the other hand, had a fine year for adding to its personnel, adding 12 to its staff, which rose from eighth to seventh place with 142 lawyers.
M. Firon & Co. fell back from seventh to eighth place with 139 lawyers, after expanding its staff by three, followed by Shibolet & Co. with 138 lawyers, following the recruitment of 11 more lawyers. S. Horowitz & Co. rounded out the top 10, the same place as last year, with 129 lawyers.
The second 10 featured a new, freshly merged player: Tadmor & Co. Yuval Levy & Co. in 15th place. At the same time, this case also shows that sometimes the whole is less than the sum of its parts. Last year, before the merger, the two firms jointly had 87 lawyers, while the merged firm now has 84.
Two other firms that achieved prominent growth in 2014 were Amar, Reiter, Jeanne, Shochatovitch & Co. and Zysman, Aharoni, Gayer & Co., which shared 19th and 20th place with 68 lawyers each The former added 13 lawyers in 2014, and the latter 12.
Battle for the title
There is no doubt that a partnership in one of Israel's major law firms is the ambition of many young lawyers. "Globes" Dun's 100 figures show, however, that partnership status is not as special as it used to be. Of the 2,577 lawyers at the 20 largest firms, 780 have partnership status at the firms where they work - over 30% of the lawyers at the major firms.
Herzog, Fox, and Neeman, for example, has no fewer than 98 partners, amounting to 37% of its total legal staff. At Pearl, Cohen, Zedek, Latzer, and Baratz, in 12th place, 42 of its 97 lawyers are partners, a 43% ratio.
Most of the partners in the large firms are "salary partners," a possibly respectable status, but not a partnership in the legal meaning of the term. Salary partners are just what the title indicates - they are employees with the right to add the title "partner" to their signature, while the "partnership" in most cases is reflected in thousands of shekels added to their salary.
Capital partners, on the other hand, own shares in a legal entity - the firm, and there are relatively few of them. The number of capital partners is not reported in the rating of the various law firms, and sometimes is not revealed to the public, because the various loyalty agreements do not allow the shares of the each partner in the corporate registry to be disclosed.
Over the past year, an intermediate status between a lawyer and a salary partner has begun to emerge - a senior associate. This new caste was launched in recent years at a number of prominent firms, and according to reports, has not been very successful among lawyers.
Many lawyers who regard themselves as candidates for partnership are wary of the new title, and sometimes consider it an insult. It is easy to understand them - did you ever hear of a Polish mother dreaming of her children becoming senior associates?
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on February 4, 2015
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