Pakt Halloran & Reyes was formed in New York in 2010 by lawyers who had spent their careers trying cases inside full-service firms and had grown tired of the arithmetic. In a firm with a corporate practice, the most valuable client is rarely the one in the courtroom. Conflicts accumulate quietly, the list of parties the firm would prefer not to sue grows every year, and advice on the merits arrives shaped by relationships the client cannot see.
Removing the transactional practice removes that problem. It also removes a great deal of revenue, which is why few firms do it. The firms that have tend to be the ones a company calls when the outcome is not negotiable.
How matters are staffed
Teams are small and senior. The firm has 264 lawyers, of whom 68 are partners, which is roughly three associates to every partner. The median matter is run by five lawyers, two of whom are partners, and the lawyer who takes the first witness is the lawyer who read the first document. We do not build teams in order to fill them, and we do not rotate associates through a matter to spread training across the year.
One consequence is that the firm turns work away. Another is that partners carry fewer matters than they would elsewhere and are expected to know the record without being briefed on it.
