"Dentons response to American Lawyer posting regarding PPP reporting

While the American Lawyer refused to acknowledge or publish our letter to their Editors in March
explaining why Dentons will no longer publicly release PPP data, the Editors have now seen fit to fire
back in a strangely personal way when others report on our letter.

Today, the Editor in Chief of the American lawyer writes, "I’m going to suspend any question of an
ulterior motive here—that Dentons didn’t report its latest global PPP figure because, by our estimates,
that number would have shown an overall PPP decline year over year of 20 percent, the worst
showing in the Am Law 100. (The firm did send out a press release earlier this year with the news that
U.S. PPP was up 4.8 percent.)”

This simple, illogical sentence deserves scrutiny from all who care about the legal profession and
proves our very point that measuring law firms by their profit per equity partner is at best misleading
and at worst detrimental to the profession.

Dentons did not even exist in 2012. It was formed in 2013 when the law firms, Salans, Fraser Milner
Casgrain (FMC) and SNR Denton, combined to create our new firm. Therefore there cannot be an
“overall PPP decline year over year,” as the editor writes. There cannot be any year over year
comparison. Even more absurd, if you take the legacy firms that make up Dentons and who have
either been forced to report their PPP for statutory reasons or who reported data for fiscal years that
ended before we made the decision not to report, they are both up year over year, making it literally
impossible for the Editor in Chief’s analysis to be correct.

Moreover, our global firm includes markets such as Canada with more than 500 lawyers, which,
consistent with reporting practices in those countries, do not disclose this type of information and
never have. So how could the Editor in Chief claim to have historic data on which to base this
inaccurate assertion?

This lack of understanding of basic math, let alone simple logic, is not only stunning, but proves our
point: contemporary law firms that operate in many different places and in many different business
cultures can not be compared with those that don’t. It is an apples to oranges comparison.

If two firms were identical in practice areas, industry sectors, and geographic location, then comparing
their profitability would tell you something about those two firms. However, since no two firms are
identical, and some like Dentons are very different, the number is meaningless.

What matters most is the service a law firm offers to its clients. Judging from the overwhelming
positive response we have received from our clients since our decision not to report PPP has become
public, it is clear that service, not rankings by profitability is where they want our focus to remain.

Let’s hope that the American Lawyer’s researchers understand math and logic better than their
editors, and are willing to engage in meaningful and serious conversations about the changes in our
profession and in our business."

Oof.