2021 Colorado 200

Law Week’s annual Colorado 200 survey shows unique insights into the health of the local legal market. This year, we heard something loud and clear from local, regional and national firms alike: Competition isn’t just coming from your own backyard anymore. And with new ways of working, firms may struggle to communicate a consistent culture to all levels of staff. 

Since the start of the pandemic, law firms reported a struggle to retain talent. Some firms have experienced resounding success switching to work-from-home or hybrid office models, but many found the pandemic’s impacts on the way we work may be driving staff away. The work-from-home offices are now competing with global firms for retention and recruiting alike, and hybrid offices reported they’re still struggling to maintain and communicate firm culture to new employees. 

This year, Law Week Colorado surveyed the 200 largest private practice law firms in Colorado to see if their number of attorneys has grown or decreased in the last year. We supplemented survey responses with outreach and research.

The survey asks for the number of total attorneys at a firm, the number of Colorado attorneys and other demographic and contact information. Our list below only reflects headcount. Overall, the number of Colorado attorneys increased over the past year. 

According to Altman Weil’s MergerLine, a national size-ranking of private practices, law firm mergers hit a 10-year low in Q2 2020, and of the 57 mergers announced to date, just 13 were between firms with more than 10 attorneys. This year, just 30 mergers were announced and none have been reported on the site since early April. One of the smallest of the reported mergers took place in Colorado, between Doida Law Group and Crow Legal in February.  

Our survey shows that sixteen firms self-reported a total of 480 Colorado partners. Fifteen firms reported diversity among partnership this year — around 36 of the Colorado partners were minorities and 153 of the Colorado attorneys at partnership level were women. The University of Colorado Law School in October 2020 reported roughly 10% of Colorado attorneys are people of color. The state continues to exceed the national average for women in partner positions but still lacks minority representation in firm partnership. Of the total number of Colorado partners reported this year, less than 1% were minorities.

The list of Colorado’s largest law firms is below, ranked according to the number of local attorneys. Did we miss a firm? Contact us at [email protected].

*Number of attorneys unconfirmed at the time of publication.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Colorado 200 list will be updated as needed.