Largest Law Firms in Cincinnati: Overview and Significance

Biggest Law Firms in Cincinnati

As with most major cities, Cincinnati is home to numerous large and medium-sized law firms that serve the broad needs of local businesses, individuals, and public entities.
Dinsmore & Shohl LLP, a nationwide firm with 765 lawyers, is the largest by number of attorneys in Cincinnati, according to The American Lawyer’s AmLaw 100 list. Founded in 1908, Dinsmore operates nearly a dozen locations across the country, with its largest office in Cincinnati.
Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP, a firm with 520 attorneys across seven states and Washington, D.C., is closely followed by Frost Brown Todd, a 450-lawyer firm spread over 12 offices in five states , plus an office in D.C. Established in 2000, Frost Brown Todd ranks 43rd on The American Lawyer’s biennial list of the largest firms in the U.S.
With 220 attorneys, Graydon heads the list of city firms that are more locally focused. Founded in 1885, Graydon offers practice areas in corporate law, estate planning, litigation, and more.
Santen & Hughes (whose partners have the firm name as their last names) is significantly smaller at only 40 lawyers, but has been a fixture in Cincinnati for nearly a century. The firm, which started as a partner-run firm a century ago, is an embodiment of what many people think of as a typical small-town law firm in a big city.

Largest Law Firms Criteria

The largest law firms in Cincinnati have earned their place among the biggest by providing legal services that are in high demand and by maintaining a healthy bottom line. But what specific metrics go into the determination of largest? The parameters for determining size of the firm generally include the number of attorneys, revenue on an annual basis, and the number of offices. These three elements help track the progress of a firm as well as establish a standard for comparative purposes. Larger firms that have enjoyed a longer period of time to increase their profitability and resources may appear to be further along than some up-and-comers who are just now starting to make a name for themselves in the city’s legal community.

Historical Development and Trends

In the competitive landscape of the legal sector, it’s easy to overlook how long established the largest law firms in Cincinnati are. Many, such as Graydon Head & Ritchey LLP and Dewey & Steed, have been around since the mid-1800s, a testament to their quality of leadership and ability to adapt to the times. In the past century alone, nearly all of these firms have undergone their biggest period of growth… some doubled, tripled or quadded in size. Established firms such as Keating Muething & Klekamp PLL, which has around 150 attorneys today, had just under 50 attorneys in the early ’90s.
Other Big Law firms in previous decades have been or currently are a part of the Cincinnati landscape but aren’t included in the latest list. For instance, there are more than a few mid-to-large sized firms throughout the tri-state that have merged, been acquired, or otherwise absorbed into other firms within the last 27 years. Firms like Stringer, Goodman, Trimble, Martinez & Burge LLP, which was once a local leading firm in the ’00s before it merged with Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP in 2006, came to be in part due to a merger in 1996 with Taft. Similarly, with 40 partners, the Wood & Lamping law firm is still around, despite having merged in 1996 with Taft.
A consistent, major trend across the board is that these large firms frequently double their number of employees after their third or fourth merger. Boasting over 600 attorneys across 11 offices, Frost Brown Todd, LLC, is the largest law firm in the region, and though they are now one of the largest firms in the whole Midwest, they’ve had five major mergers in the last three decades: The Frost and Brown Todd firms merged in 1977 and ’78, then merged with Overman & Gray in 1994, and finally made their most recent acquisition of Houston-based Fabela Homann.
Changes in the legal sector over the past few decades understandably had significant ripple effects on top firms’ growth. We’ve gone from a traditional single-tier billing structure where a senior partner could bill upwards of $600 per hour to flexible alternative fee arrangements where teams of highly competent associates take on lower-value but time-consuming tasks. Some firms have even begun to create wholly-owned subsidiaries that sell software and other products to corporations.
What’s more, the largest firms in Cincinnati are more digitally savvy than their smaller competitors. As a former managing partner put it, "We’ve always run our business like we compete with consulting firms for people and business." The majority of these firms are equipped with dedicated STEAM departments and cloud-based systems to better accommodate their clients’ needs. These changes have all but eliminated the "good old boy" network of yesteryear, taking the power away from legal heavyweights in favor of a collaborative, team-centric style that places a premium on staying connected both inside and outside of the office.

Key Practice Zones

The largest law firms in Cincinnati cover a broad range of practice areas and specialities. The most significant practice area across all jurisdictions in the area is, not surprisingly, litigation. Litigation practice encompasses two parts: civil litigation and criminal defense litigation. This practice area includes numerous sub-practice areas, such as class action certificates, white collar criminal defense, tortious interference with contract, insurance and payer litigation. In addition to general civil litigation, some of the largest firms in the area have expertise in representing clients in qui tam litigation, securities litigation, intellectual property litigation, bankruptcy litigation, patent infringement litigation, trademark infringement litigation, breach of fiduciary duty litigation, and antitrust litigation.
Closely related to the litigation practices are the intellectual property and corporate practices . Most of the largest firms in the area have significant expertise in intellectual property matters, including for example, patents, trademarks, trade secrets, and copyrights. Particularly large firms in the area also have significant experience in the following corporate areas: mergers and acquisitions, financing, securities offerings, private equity funds, hedge funds, and venture capital funds.
Labor and Employment is another key practice area across all of the largest law firms in the Greater Cincinnati area. This practice area includes both traditional labor work, such as union avoidance and labor negotiations, as well as traditional employment work such as employment discrimination, employment contracts, and employment litigation. These employers include both private and public employers, as well as both for-profit and non-profit employers.

Influence on the Local Community

The largest law firms in Cincinnati inevitably wield a significant degree of power in its community. That’s not just the result of their sheer size or the amount of legal work that they take on. It’s also the result of the way that these firms impact local economies, the community services that they provide, and the aspect of pro bono work that incorporates into their client-rosters.
Most directly, these firms employ hundreds of local workers and those workers buy groceries, shop at retail stores, and send their children to schools in the city proper. This means that firms like Dinsmore Shohl—whose Cincinnati office boasts 135 attorneys—are directly implicated in the economies of local towns and neighborhoods. The financial influence of an employer is one thing, but, when added to the prestige and attention associated with having a powerful law firm headquartered in a town or city, it stands to reason that the presence of such a firm will have a valuable impact on a city’s economy.
Additionally, large firms like Dinsmore Shohl, Keating Muething & Klekamp PLL, and Thompson Hine are increasingly involved in the community organizations of Cincinnati. This includes charitable organizations, local events, and regional improvement initiatives, all of which are supported by those who work within the firm. In this regard, the legal power of these large firms is matched—and surpassed—by their community outreach efforts and the impact that these efforts have on everyone from school children to the elderly.
Pro bono work is also becoming an important facet of the personal and organizational commitment Cincinnati’s largest law firms make to their communities. Lawyering can be a demanding profession, with exorbitant amounts of stress and anxiety frequently cited as symptoms of life as a corporate attorney. However, despite such pressures, the largest firms in town commit themselves and their attorneys to performing pro bono work. This, among other things, is a sign of the level of corporate responsibility that is exhibited by large firms.
These legal giants donate their time, effort, and energy to help marginalized groups by integrating legal assistance into otherwise inaccessible areas. Pro bono legal work is vital to the communities, and the institutions that hope to thrive within them, that it is a fair expectation of all businesses with a vested interest in supporting local organizations.

Selecting a Law Firm

With so many choices, how does a potential client decide on the right firm for them? While exploring the opportunities within the biggest Cincinnati law firms, these clients should consider the specialization and expertise of the firm. Does the firm have experience fighting for the rights of individuals, or does it focus on representing businesses? Choosing the right firm is all about finding the niche that best serves one’s needs.
Another concern that may lead to a decision when choosing among large firms is the firm culture. Do the firm’s values resonate with one’s own values? Does the firm actively reward its employees for their hard work , or do staff and lawyers go unappreciated?
Another idea is to look at the success that the firm has experienced in the past. How satisfied have previous clients been with the service they received? The best law firms have stellar reputations due to positive testimonials provided by clients. Past performance can be a strong indicator of what to expect from a future relationship with the firm in the future.