Fort Lauderdale-baded Greenspoon Marder isn’t letting harsh financial times bring them down. Not a chance. In fact, they recently opened a new office in Stuart, Florida and hired on four attorneys.

That’s right…and their plans for growth doesn’t stop there.

According to The National Law Journal, “the 72-lawyer firm added the new office to accommodate two new lawyers who joined the firm and have practices in Stuart, said co-managing partner Gerald Greenspoon.

“In addition to those lawyers — Chad Paiva, who heads up the consumer and bankruptcy practice, and Marc Cohen, who leads the collections practice — the firm recently added family law specialists Mark Rabinowitz and Elizabeth Tener. Rabinowitz and Tener will practice in the firm’s Orlando, Fla., office.”

As for the expansion, Greenspoon stated: “We still have a good core fundamental business. We’ve always run our practice as a business and looked to adapt to changing times.”

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Let’s keep it real…no one likes dishing out tons of money to the IRS. That is why, although it’s illegal, I can still understand why someone would try and avoid paying the big G! However, stashing money in Swiss bank accounts may not be the way. In fact, there really isn’t a way to avoid taxes. Sooner or later, it catches up to you.

On Wednesday, the Justice Department unsealed a Florida indictment of Raoul Weil, the chief executive officer of the Swiss bank’s cross-border United States banking division. Allegedly, between 2002 and 2007 Weil oversaw private banking operations for 20,000 U.S. clients and had bank managers help clients conceal nearly $20 billion from the IRS.

“Mr. Weil denies any suggestion that he was aware of, engaged in or tolerated any illegal conduct in the operation of UBS’s U.S.-cross-border business. That business represented only a tiny percentage of the global wealth management business for which Mr. Weil is responsible,” he said.

“Mr. Weil is a highly respected banking executive in Switzerland with an unblemished record for integrity. We fully intend to fight this indictment and look forward to vindicating Mr. Weil’s good name,” he said.

Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t. Regardless, the IRS are after him and that is no joking matter. Ah, to dream of a day where taxes no longer existed. It would be heaven on earth!

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Held in New Orleans last week was a panel speaking on the issue of “The Law Firm of the Future - Who Will be the New Winners and New Losers.” With growing financial concern, legal fees are being watched closely as companies and/or individuals are trying to decide if the fee is feasible. That is why a panel consisting of Bruce MacEwen, a New York-based law firm consultant; Sheryl Willert of Williams Kastner in Seattle; Patricia Diaz Dennis, senior vice president and assistant general counsel of AT&T; and Raymond Williams of DLA Piper’s Philadelphia office advise firms to discount rates!

It’s all about a discount now adays!

“We are facing pressure on rates,” said MacEwen, who also mentioned that one company fired its law firm after it became public that firm was charging $1,000-an-hour rates.

According to Diaz Dennis, AT&T sent out a letter to its law firms a few years back, advising them that their budget was too high.

“The ones that stepped up to the plate and offered to share that pain with us are the ones who are still working with us,” she said.

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Goodwin Procter was founded in 1912, by Harvard classmates Robert Goodwin and Joseph Procter. And in the 1960’s specialized in legal work around Real Estate trusts. This niche allowed them to grow in strength, and credibility, eventually allowing them to expand between 01′ and 02′ establishing an office in New York as well as hiring 27 new lawyers.  At that time they also  approved a strategic plan to focus on six key areas of legal practice focusing on technology, real estate, and intellectual property.

In 2004 Goodwin Procter hit a road-bump, when 16 of their 27 lawyers in it’s Washington, D.C. office left to form Buckley Kolar which specializes in Financial services.  But they bounced right back, merging with Shea & Gardner, and restructuring their practice groups while adding 70 new lawyers. Then again in 2005 they added another 91 lawyers from the now defunct technology specialist firm Hurwitz.

Since then they have expanded even further, opening offices in San Francisco, Century City, San Diego, Los Angeles, and Silicon Valley. This expansion has been very successful, as the numbers will relate. More than tripling their gross revenue since 2000 topping out at $611 million and doubled their profits per partner, ending up at $1.54 million.

While Goodwin Procter may be one of the biggest movers, that doesn’t mean they’re the biggest profiter. Two firms broke through the $2 billion barrier this year including Skadden, Arps and Latham & Watkins. With the top 100 firms totaling 64.5 billion, there’s a lot of money moving around. Even the lowest firms on the list profited significantly. With total profits across all firms rising 13.6 percent since the last report.

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According to the financial numbers from American Lawyer’s top 100 list, 2007 was one of the best years on record for law firms in the United States. Both the benchmarks for revenue per lawyer, and profit per partner increased substantially.

Going back to 2003, the average increase for revenue per lawyer has been $205,000. Prior to 2003, it took firms ten times as long to improve that much. This is even more evident in the profit per partner benchmark, which has jumped by $438,000 since 2003 to an average of $1.3 million.

The recent increases are largely due to a rapidly growing demand for high-end legal services and constant annual rate hikes. Also a relative lack of new equity partners being named, since 2001 has helped to inflate these numbers only increasing by 2.6 percent on average, or about five new partners.

Total revenues for 2007 hit $64.5 billion, increasing by 13.6 percent from 2006. With both Skaden, Arps, and Latham & Watkins topping $2 billion revenue. The total number of lawyers in the top 100 grew by 6.8 percent totaling 77,816 lawyers. New York maintains it’s dominance of the industry, with an average revenue per lawyer of $1.1 million, while the average for firms not in New York was around $780,000.

There is some speculation that the industry may be facing a downturn in the near future, with indicators pointing to weakness. For the first time since the recession in 2001, the growth of head count has surpassed the growth in RPL noticeably.

You can view the  list in it’s entirety on AmericanLawyer.com, we’ll be discussing it more here as well in the coming days/weeks.

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An article posted today on ForeclosureConnections.com reveals a growing market for Law Firms in the foreclosure business.

With Tampa foreclosures on a rise, people are on a hiring spree and law firms are finding themselves facing an increasing caseload that may grow to over a thousand cases or more.

There’s a lot of legal issues that can come up with these foreclosures, even the simplest disputes can generate significant revenues considering the time invested.

The sub prime mess has contributed to banks filing for foreclosure in Tampa, Hillsborough and other courts in Florida. According to court records, 1475 new foreclosure cases were files in February 2008 in Hillsborough County as compared to 562 foreclosure cases in Feb 2007 and 271 in Feb 2006.

This rapid rise in the amount of business available leads to many new opportunities for law firms, attorneys, and other legal professionals to swoop in and make a fairly large amount of money in a short amount of time. Many of these cases do not require a trial attorney, or any major research, and seem to largely be a simple matter of drafting out the right documents and agreements for the parties involved based on their circumstances.

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