Photo / Courtesy, Drummond Woodsum
E. William Stockmeyer
Updated: November 18, 2024
Who's up, who's down in new Maine law firm rankings
Graphic / Matt Selva, using data compiled by Stephanie Meagher
The Big 10: Here’s an overview of Maine’s largest law firms ranked by numbers of attorneys (shown in purple) in the latest Mainebiz list. The blue bars reflect the total numbers of Maine employees.
After adding 10 attorneys in the past year, Drummond Woodsum has edged out Bernstein Shur as the state’s largest law firm in rankings just released by Mainebiz.
This year’s list, published in the Nov. 18 print edition of Mainebiz and in the database for subscribers, ranks the state’s 12 largest law firms by the number of attorneys employed in Maine. The data comes from a survey conducted by Mainebiz researcher Stephanie Meagher.
With this year's hires, Drummond Woodsum has 85 Maine attorneys and moved up from the No. 4 rank in 2023 to take the top spot. The previous occupant, Bernstein Shur, has 84 attorneys in Maine this year or eight fewer than last year.
Rounding out the top five ranks are Pierce Atwood LLP again in third place with 77 attorneys in Maine; Verrill, inching up from fifth to fourth with 74 attorneys in its home state; and Preti Flaherty, slipping three places to No. 5 with 65 attorneys in Maine, a dozen fewer than last year.
While attorney numbers are in constant flux, the year-to-year changes reflect the state’s evolving legal landscape. The Mainebiz list includes practice areas at each firm, along with the year the firm was founded and the managing partner.
Drummond Woodsum
At Drummond Woodsum, the fastest-growing practice areas include business and corporate law, restructuring and creditors’ rights, and a nationwide tribal nations practice group led by partners in Portland and Flagstaff, Ariz.
“When a lawyer in the firm has a new idea or passion for a new area or practice or new development in the law they want to invest time in, we encourage them in pursuing it,” said E. William (Bill) Stockmeyer, a longtime attorney at the firm who succeeded George Dilworth as managing director earlier this year.
“We have the patience to allow lawyers to do that, which breeds loyalty and is part of the entrepreneurial dynamic of this place,” Stockmeyer added.
He also insists that while one can’t ignore industry rankings and league tables in general, “from our perspective it’s never been a race … We don’t really focus on growth as an objective goal.”
Bernstein Shur
Growth is top of mind at Bernstein Shur, which lost at least two shareholders this year — Chad Higgins and Kevan Lee Deckelmann — to the Portland office of global law firm Dentons Bingham Greenebaum.
In addition, the former co-chairs of Bernstein’s investigations and resolutions practice group left the firm to start their own business venture, called Aleta Law, joined by several colleagues.
With a 168-strong Maine workforce, Bernstein Shur nevertheless has the largest overall employee total among the state’s law firms, the Mainebiz survey shows.
File photo / Tim Greenway
Bernstein Shur CEO Joan Fortin
“While it’s a nice accomplishment to be the ‘largest’ law firm in Maine, our actual goal is not to be the biggest, but instead be the most highly regarded independent law firm in northern New England,” said Bernstein Shur CEO Joan Fortin, who plans to leave her post at the start of 2025 for a career break.
“We are aggressively recruiting new attorneys, with a focus on several areas of law, including business, mergers and acquisitions, health care, trust and estates, and litigation,” she added.
“We are actively recruiting shareholders and associate attorneys, and our headcount will increase.”
Fortin said the firm is also in the process of hiring a new chief people officer.
“The number of attorneys that we have goes up and down for a lot of reasons — retirements, career changes, appointments to the bench, changes in life circumstances,” she noted.
Fortin said her firm has “aggressive goals for growth and expansion,” predicting the number of attorneys to grow in the coming months.
She also noted that the firm has a growing office in Manchester, N.H., as well as a large government and public affairs practice group, which combines legal counsel with other services delivered by professionals who are not lawyers.
Preti Flaherty
Meanwhile at Preti Flaherty, the firm is approaching “our best year ever from a financial perspective,” according to the firm’s managing partner, Michael S. Smith.
File Photo / Courtesy, Preti Flaherty
Michael S. Smith
Asked about the drop in Preti’s attorney numbers, Smith told Mainebiz that the firm is nearing the tail end of an anticipated wave of retirements in what he described as a “gradual and orderly process,” and takes a pragmatic approach to hiring.
“We’ve never particularly focused on our Maine headcount as a core metric in terms of how our firm is doing financially or culturally,” he said.
The 42-year-old litigator was recently promoted to managing partner at the firm, which just remodeled its Portland headquarters. As for the road ahead, Smith said that the firm’s real estate and corporate practices are both in growth mode.
“We have a great core group of partners across various generations, some of whom have been here a long time,” he added. “Speaking for myself, I think it’s a pretty exciting time to be a partner.”
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