Hogan Lovells is looking to continue growth in New York after poaching roughly 70 partners and associates from failing Stroock & Stroock & Lavan, according to the global law firm’s leader.

The acquisition of the Stroock team, a group that includes 28 partners, highlights CEO Miguel Zaldivar’s efforts to burnish Hogan Lovells’ brand as a top-tier firm. He’s planning further investments in New York, California, Texas, Washington and London, Zaldivar said in an interview.

“In New York, you require critical mass and this is a very good step in the right direction,” Zaldivar said of the Stroock hires, many of which are based in Manhattan. “But it’s definitely not the end of our growth plan for New York.”

Hogan Lovells is already among the largest firms in the world, employing roughly 2,500 lawyers and raking in more than $2.4 billion in gross revenue last year. Its attorneys have advised Walmart, Lockheed Martin, and Apollo Global Management, Inc., among a wide range of other companies.

The firm’s branding “is still a little bit behind,” said Zaldivar, who was first elected CEO in 2000. “So I’m putting in a lot of time to close the gap because that drives revenue up.”

Hogan still aims to reach $3 billion in revenue—a height only the top five law firms have reached, as ranked by the American Lawyer. It’s a matter of “when” and not “if,” Zaldivar said.

Murky economic conditions that have slowed demand across the industry poses a hurdle. Longer bill collection times for Hogan and its competitors also could take a bite out of the firm’s bottom line.

Leading by Example

Hogan’s efforts to build its mergers and acquisitions presence in New York, Europe and elsewhere has resulted in M&A becoming “the largest practice area in the firm” by head count, revenue, and by origination of work, said Bill Curtin, Hogan’s global head of M&A in an interview.

In M&A, Curtin said Big Law firms and their clients often think of “indigenous New York law firms” like Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, Davis Polk & Wardwell, and Cravath, Swaine & Moore, as well as the British “Magic Circle” firms such as Freshfields, Linklaters and Clifford Chance.

“We’re different. We’re neither of those,” he said.

Hogan inhabits a unique spot among leading firms, thanks to the 2010 transatlantic between Washington-based Hogan & Hartson, and London’s Lovells, Curtin and Zaldivar said.

Zaldivar wants to bolster the New York office’s finance and private equity rosters. He said the litigation practice in New York also could benefit from more lawyers.

He is mindful of resources, however, “so I can give the highest return to my partners.” He says he leads by example, moving into a windowless office when members of the Stroock team came aboard.

The Venezuelan-born Zaldivar was tapped in September by the firm’s partners to lead the firm for a second term that will end in 2028. Before becoming Hogan’s CEO, he served as regional managing partner for the Asia, Pacific, and Middle East region, and as co-head of the Latin American practice, among other posts.

As CEO, one of his goals is for the firm to be perceived as “deeply connected to the New York market.”

When you find a firm like the 1876-founded Stroock, which was “full of New Yorkers that are at the top of their game in the areas that were of interest to us, it made it very easy for me to support the deal,” Zaldivar said.

Despite its plans for growth Zaldivar says the firm is not looking to open more offices. Hogan currently has offices in 18 US cities and another 30 in Europe, Asia, Australia, Africa and the Middle East, according to its website.

“We already have a great footprint,” he said. “We have proven to the world we’re global.”

Lagging Collections

Hogan’s aim to reach the $3 billion revenue mark may be hampered due to lagging client bill collections—an industry-wide phenomenon that has lingered from 2022, said Zaldivar.

“Collections are slower than what we have experienced before, even during COVID days,” he said, despite clients’ satisfaction with the firm and its work. “It frustrates me because there’s a great inventory of bills there that should be collected.”

In 2021, the firm notched a 26% jump in profits per equity partner, in part through merger and acquisition deals for Oracle Corp. and work for IBM Corp. and others.

Hogan reported profits per equity partner of just under $2.3 million in 2022, and more than $2.3 billion in gross revenue that year, putting it twelfth among the largest law firms in the US.

The revenue figure dropped 6.7% from the record reached in 2021, which Zaldivar has attributed to a slowdown in M&A deals.

The Stroock partners joining Hogan are primarily in New York, but also are in DC, Los Angeles and Miami. They include Jeff Keitelman, former co-managing partner of Stroock and co-chair of its real estate group Stroock’s real estate practice, and Joseph Giminaro, who led that firm’s tax certiorari group.