Larry Bodine Law Marketing Blog

It's the season for law firms to publish their annual reports, and for the first time, Latham & Watkins has 30-page glossy 2005 Annual Review.  Robert Dell, chairman of the 1,800-lawyer 22-office firm opens the review with a long list of high rankings the firm achieved, and invites readers to find stories about their transactions and court cases.

The success stories include representing Arthur Andersen at the U.S. Supremje Court, a cross-border project finance project for Ras Laffan Liquefied Natural Gas Company, and the merger of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR) and Silver Lake Partners.  Among the things the review does well:

• It's cleanly-designed, has plenty of pictures, and brief passages of reader-friendly text.
• It tells 11 case histories in one-page summaries.  Each is preceded by a concise, one-paragraph synopsis.  The stories are sure to attract big companies with similar business problems in securities, environment, antitrust, mass tort, finanfce and M&A.
• Each story is illustated with a terse quote of practice highlight call-out.
• Another 11 stories are captured in one-paragraph summaries.
• The report includes pages on the firm's commitment to diversity and pro bono, which will be useful for recruiting purposes.

Congratulations to CMO Despina C. Karson.  I recommend she print out this page and ask Mr. Dell for a raise.