Herbert Washer pushed Wall Street's Cahill Gordon & Reindel to expand its business after taking the helm, but he doesn't see the century-old firm joining the ranks of Big Law's largest players.

"For us, the key has been to pick areas where we can be top of the market," said Washer, who took over from as Cahill’s sole leader last year. "You don't want to enter a market space where you're going to be the tenth most successful law firm."

On this episode of our podcast, On The Merits, Washer spoke to Bloomberg Law editor Jessie Kokrda Kamens about what spurred the firm to start playing in the lateral recruiting market, look beyond its leveraged finance roots, and target new types of clients—particularly those with cryptocurrency interests.

"Our loyalty has been and always will be, to a large degree, to the banks," Washer said. But a dip in bank activity in the leveraged finance space in 2023 took a bite out of Cahill's bottom line. "It caused us to sort of rethink the overall strategy that had worked so well for so long," he said.

The firm bounced back last year, bringing in nearly $464 million in gross revenue and boosting profits per equity partner to $5.3 million. It also added partners in private credit, restructuring, and litigation, among other key practices.

Washer would rather excel in the firm's core focus areas than try to be everything to every client. He's wary of expanding too quickly from a headcount of under 300 lawyers, both for business reasons and to preserve the firm's culture.

"When a firm gets to 3,000, 4,000, 5,000 lawyers, no one person—no matter how successful they are—is really critical to the operation of the place," he said.

This conversation is a part of our Leading Law Firms project, in which we score law firms using more than just traditional metrics like a firm's bottom line. Throughout the rest of this month, we'll be sharing more interviews with the leaders of other firms like DLA Piper and Susman Godfrey.

Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.