Midsized businesses may not seem like the most exciting clients for law firms, especially as the largest and richest firms pull away from the pack with their ever-growing profits. But for the firms who have embraced it, working with midmarket clients is anything but mediocre.
But the middle has always encompassed a broad swath of companies, who generate plenty of deals and other matters even if the work doesn’t carry as large a price tag. “There’s more mid-cap and small-cap companies than there are big-cap companies … obviously they’re looking for rates that are lower than the megafirms,” says Michael Kelly, chairman of Newark, New Jersey-based McCarter & English. “We’ve targeted that market, and we’ve had great success doing that, because there’s great demand.”