Pointing to an explosion of consumer class actions and a surge of contingency and premium-priced matters, Shook, Hardy & Bacon said it grew revenue 28.4% to nearly $643.4 million, while average profits per partner soared 57.4% to about $2.32 million. Revenue per lawyer also grew 24.1%, to $1.16 million, even amid a bump in firm headcount. Meanwhile, the firm’s net income grew a substantial 59.2%, to $309.2 million, while average comp for all partners surged 47.7%, to $1.4 million. The gains were also made as the firm slightly grew its equity and nonequity partnership tiers. The firm didn’t say how many hours it billed. But in an interview this week, firm chair Madeleine McDonough said it was a year of “tremendous client demand,” saying there were more hours billed in 2025 than 2024, as billing rates also grew between 7% and 9%. More than a third of the firm’s revenue (38%) came from alternative fee arrangements, and some of that includes matters where there are success or premium bonuses built in for achieving certain milestones. McDonough said they have found that clients appreciate when firms “also have skin in the game with them, and we like to do that wherever we can.” She also said they like to joke that “if there are 100 clients we’re negotiating with, we might have 100 different [billing] arrangements.” But the traditional contingency matters are in a separate bucket, she said. “We always have a pretty robust pipeline of potential contingency fee recoveries, but because they are inherently contingent, we never budget for them, so when they happen, they are quite a positive, and we have quite a few in the works right now,” McDonough said on Monday. She added, “That’s become, I would say, a more interesting and profitable piece of our overall portfolio. We really do like betting on ourselves, and so far it’s been a pretty profitable approach.” The firm’s leader noted that there’s been an “explosion” of consumer class actions in California in particular, and that’s affected the firm’s top and bottom lines, noting that Shook represents 23 of the top 25 automotive manufacturers. Meanwhile, tech clients, like Microsoft, and chemical and pharmaceutical companies are significant parts of the firm’s rolodex, she said. Shook has been able to more aggressively expand its client list over the last decade or two, while continuing to serve legacy clients that have been with the firm for generations, she said. “We have far less concentration issues than we did 10 years ago, or 20 years ago,” she said. Products liability, large-scale multidistrict litigation, antitrust and complex commercial litigation work in particular led to much of the firm’s gains in 2025.

McDonough also called the firm’s complex litigation strategic counseling practice, which helps clients coordinate on mass torts, “transformative.” “They look at early planning for large-scale litigation, from really a strategic and discovery and technology perspective; use all sorts of AI and other approaches to managing large-scale litigation, and it’s really across industries,” she said. “So I would say that approach has been a really important piece of our portfolio.” She noted that the group’s hiring of John Rosenthal and Jamie Brown, plus the addition of Simone Jones as a partner to its class action and appellate litigation practice from Sidley Austin, are early key hires this year. McDonough also pointed to the notable additions last year of Holly Polgase, from Clyde & Co., and former U.S. Magistrate Judge Kimberly Priest Johnson in Boston in complex litigation and strategic counseling, respectively; Matt Ball in class actions in San Francisco, from K&L Gates; and trial attorney Kurt Weaver in Chicago, from Womble Bond Dickinson. She said the firm has multiple strategies on the lateral market, including looking for overlapping clients, industry depth and partners they’ve worked with in virtual law firm environments or otherwise. Also: “Sometimes we really just need more horsepower, because some of the litigations are so large,” she said. At a time when many firms are creating and increasing nonequity partners, while seeing declines in the equity ranks, Shook slightly grew both tiers last year, with equity increasing 1.1% to about 133.4 full-time equivalents, and nonequity partners increasing about 1.4%, to about 130. McDonough said the firm wants to grow in those areas, but they’re always looking at the qualities of those partners, and the overall numbers “never guided our decision-making on that.” McDonough said while there is nothing imminent, she is “always open to exploring” combinations, whether it’s acquiring smaller firms, merging with similar-sized firms or even getting interest from larger firms. She said that, especially in a competitive and increasingly expensive environment, they have to remain open-minded. “You have to look at growing in almost every way, whether it’s individuals, small practice groups, large practice groups, or even combinations,” McDonough said. The 2025 financial figures reported in this story are preliminary. Law.com will report finalized data for the Am Law 200 on The American Lawyer in April and May.