It might not seem like a dramatic swing at a glance, but Colorado’s largest firms are converging on each other in terms of attorney count.
Law Week Colorado’s annual Colorado 200 lists the largest firms in Colorado according to headcount. We collect information on Colorado’s law firms through a self-reported survey, and when we don’t have that survey information available, we count attorneys ourselves.
In addition to the simple headcount, we also collect data on the number of attorneys firmwide for any law firms operating outside Colorado, the number of partners, associates and counsel, and the number of female and minority partners. Our final survey gives us a look at the demographics of Colorado’s legal community. That full list of data goes back to 2012, which means we’re now able to look longitudinally at growth in Colorado’s legal community at an attorney level and a firm level.
Our list for 2018 illustrates the fact that despite having a listing of the largest 200 firms, most of Colorado’s legal market is made up of small firms. Only the top 17 even break 50 attorneys, and the vast majority of the list comprises firms of 20 or fewer attorneys. The chart below demonstrates just how sharp the drop-off is from the largest firms.
Of those large firms, the top 10 are converging somewhat. The three biggest firms saw some shrinking while the remainder of the group grew. There’s still a gulf between No. 1 and No. 10, but the trend line in the size of those firms isn’t as steep as it has been in years past. 
Beyond that top group, the Colorado offices of most firms didn’t see significant changes. The national merger frenzy in the legal industry has mostly stayed out of Colorado, with the large lateral changes happening in 2017.
Overall attorney count at the top 200 firms creeped up in the past year with firms on our Colorado 200 list adding just 77 attorneys, suggesting much of the movement on the list is from attorneys moving from one place to another within our community. The average change in size for most firms is just less than a growth of one attorney.
Despite the very slight increase, there are a few outliers. Franklin D. Azar and Associates stands out on this years list for its addition of 19 attorneys since last year’s listing by our count, growing by 63 percent. Greenberg Traurig added 12 attorneys in the state, growing its presence here by 22 percent, and Wheeler Trigg O’Donnell and Polsinelli each grew by 11 attorneys since last year, growing by 11 percent and 12 percent respectively. By our knowledge, these firms have all experienced natural growth, rather than through acquisitions of other firms.
Other noteworthy data gained from our Colorado 200 listing is the continued upward shift in female and minority representation among the partner ranks at Colorado law firms. According to our survey, 27.74 percent of Colorado partners are women and 7.99 percent are minorities. Although our surveys over time have shown fluctuation — particularly in years where we had a smaller sample size through our surveys — but the trend is going up.
In comparison to the national picture, Colorado law firms are right alongside the average reported by the National Association of Law Placement. According to the NALP’s most recent data, reported in May, just over 8 percent of partners at major US law firms in 2017 were minorities and almost 23 percent were women. Colorado is ahead of the average for women, but where our local community might differ is in size; NALP data only looks at major law firms, while Colorado’s law firms are smaller than large national firms.
Law Week doesn’t track demographic data for associates, but Colorado’s diversity initiatives that focus on addressing pipeline issues as well as recruitment out of law school, we suspect Colorado’s numbers would at least match the national average. This is an area we hope to expand for future years with the help of the law firms participating in our survey.
Overall, our survey for this year doesn’t show many major shakeups from last year. With a slowdown in growth overall and Colorado’s firms staying out of major mergers, our legal community seems to be staying the course for now.
— Tony Flesor