Spencer Fane is pleased to announce Chair Patrick J. Whalen has been recognized as a 2024 Managing Partner of the Year finalist for The American Lawyer’s upcoming Industry Awards.
While the firm’s leadership is intentional about avoiding a “top-down” approach to management, the honor underscores the pivotal role Pat and the leadership team have played in executing a client-centered, culture-first strategy that recently led to The American Lawyer recognizing the firm as the fastest-growing firm in the Am Law 200.
“A look at the firm’s growth and strategy is a case study on how a law firm can add market share, climb the rankings, and grow profits, all at the same time,” The American Lawyer recently reported. In addition to increasing its revenue at a faster pace than its peers, Spencer Fane raised its revenue per lawyer by 38 percent and profits per partner by 47 percent over the same period.
The American Lawyer Industry Awards celebrate outstanding achievements and contributions made by individuals, law firms, and legal departments across various practice areas and specialties.” Honorees are distinguished by their “most impactful, innovative and otherwise excellent work.”
Pat is among only seven in the nation selected as a Managing Partner of the Year finalist and the only nominee from a firm outside the thirty largest global firms. This distinction comes on the heels of the firm’s selection as a Law Firm of the Year finalist in 2023.
Managing Partner of the Year lauds outstanding business leadership that propels a firm’s most notable initiatives and successes. In the past year alone, Spencer Fane has maintained its approach to intentional growth, allowing the firm to enter new, thriving markets such as Sante Fe, New Mexico, Salt Lake City, Utah, and Washington, D.C.; increase its revenue growth by 139% over the past five years; and earn a reputation as one of the best companies to work for by U.S. News & World Report.
These achievements stem from the firm’s uncompromising commitment to its core values – intellectual humility; collaboration; diversity, equity, and inclusion; and an unwavering, fierce resolve to win – which unlock value for and attract talented legal professionals and clients. Recently, Spencer Fane has bolstered this unique approach by implementing a new, innovative organizational structure and hiring the firm’s first Chief Talent & Diversity Officer.
“Our firm is transitioning away from the traditional top-down hierarchical structure and organizing in a manner that resists a ‘command and control’ bureaucracy in favor of a design intended to nurture a culture of empowerment, autonomy, and accountability,” Pat recently shared with Law Week Colorado. “Within our firm, we see the shift as a movement, not a mandate, that comes in response to a shift in the optimal structure providing both the support attorneys need to serve clients at the highest level and the opportunity for continuous personal growth and improvement.”
Pat and his fellow honorees will be formally recognized at the annual awards gala on November 13 in New York City. Winners will be announced at the ceremony.
View the full shortlist of 2024 Industry Awards honorees here.
