New Leader and Five New Firms Join the American Lawyer's 2004 A-List Ranking of Profession's Elite

Business Wire, August 31, 2004

NEW YORK -- The American Lawyer(R) magazine published its 2004 Am Law A-List ranking today, naming Debevoise & Plimpton of New York City as the new leader of the nation's law firm elite. Five new law firms joined this year's list. Selected by the magazine's editors and drawn from rankings of the nation's 200 largest firms, the 20-member Am Law A-List looks beyond simple business performance to identify firms that set the standard for their peers in areas including client satisfaction, pro bono work and diversity. Complete A-List rankings are featured in the September issue of the magazine, shipping today, and are available on the Web at www.americanlawyer.com and www.law.com.

The five new A-List firms are Howrey Simon Arnold & White of Washington, D.C. (8); Hughes Hubbard & Reed of New York City (20); Morrison & Foerster of San Francisco (13); Munger, Tolles & Olson of Los Angeles (3); and Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi of Minneapolis (18).

The Am Law A-List is created through a composite ranking of four objective firm dimensions, based on data collected for various surveys throughout the year:

--Revenue Per Lawyer, as a measure of the success of a firm's practice and an approximation of client quality and satisfaction

--Associate Satisfaction, as a measure of each firm's training and development commitment

--Diversity, as a measure of each firm's track record in hiring and retaining minority lawyers

--Pro Bono, as a measure of each firm's fulfillment of its professional requirement to contribute high-quality, free legal services to indigent clients and community service and non-profit organizations.

A weighted ranking of firms is created from these factors for all Am Law 200 firms. The top 20 firms comprise the Am Law A-List.

"We created the A-List to measure more than just financial success. Instead, we looked for a set of core professional values that could be objectively assessed and that would identify the leaders of the profession," said Aric Press, editor in chief of The American Lawyer. "This year, our 15 returning firms and five new members had to surpass an even higher cutoff to make the list. We congratulate all of them on their performance."

The American Lawyer is the legal industry's leading monthly magazine. Read by partners at corporate law firms, in-house counsel, government lawyers, and litigators at firms of all sizes, its trailblazing features about attorneys and the work they do has led to 23 National Magazine Award nominations and five coveted awards for general excellence, essays and criticism, and single-topic issues. Earlier this year, The American Lawyer was been named the winner of two 2004 Jesse H. Neal National Business Journalism Awards. The magazine is published by American Lawyer Media, Inc. (ALM), the nation's leading legal journalism and information company.

Headquartered in New York City, ALM is a leading integrated media company, focused on the legal industry. ALM currently owns and publishes 33 national and regional legal magazines and newspapers, including The American Lawyer and The National Law Journal(R). ALM's Law.com is the Web's leading legal news and information network. ALM's other businesses include book, custom and newsletter publishing, court verdict and settlement reporting, production of legal trade shows and conferences, educational seminars and distribution of content related to the legal industry. ALM was formed by U.S. Equity Partners, L.P., a private equity fund sponsored by Wasserstein & Co., LP. More information on ALM, its business and services is available on the Web at www.americanlawyermedia.com.