Brownstein Tops Law Firm Rivals With Lobbying at Record Pace (1)

Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck led rivals in federal lobbying revenue last quarter with $16.2 million, putting the law firm on pace to top last year’s record haul.

The firm credited active House and Senate oversight agendas, issues related to artificial intelligence, and bills such as the National Defense Authorization Act for revenue that topped any quarter in 2023, when it brought in a record $62.6 million.

“People look at Congress and say nothing is happening,” Nadeam Elshami, a policy director at Brownstein Hyatt, said in an interview. “Nothing is further from the truth.”

The performance through March 31 is representative of the lobbying sector, where spending surpassed $4 billion for two consecutive years. Even as the pace of legislation has slowed, issues relating to AI energy and taxes are getting attention from Congress and the business community.

Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, which reported over $50 million in revenue last year, was close behind Brownstein with $13.8 million in first quarter revenue, lobby disclosure forms show. The firm, which earned $240,000 lobbying for Nippon Steel Corp. in its quest to buy United States Steel Corp., said the figures represented its best first quarter ever.

Other firms seeing strong starts to the year included Holland & Knight, which said it posted more than $12 million in federal lobbying revenue for the fourth straight quarter. The firm reported roughly $12.4 million through March, a 15% increase from the same time period in 2023.

Squire Patton Boggs and K&L Gates posted $5.4 million and $4.3 million, respectively, in first quarter lobbying revenue, slight declines from the same period last year. Hogan Lovells reported $2.3 million, a slight uptick from last year’s first quarter.

Covington & Burling reported one of the largest outside lobbying contracts, earning $1.2 million from Qualcomm Inc. for advocacy on matters such as antitrust and intellectual property, according to an April 22 disclosure form.

Tax `Super Bowl’

Election years are historically down periods for lobbyists, as lawmakers shift their focus to campaigning. But recent years show little slowdown in activity on Capitol Hill.

Lobbying spending in the last election year, 2022, reached $4.1 billion, which at the time marked a record, according to Bloomberg Government. Spending spiked to $4.27 billion the year after.

Many businesses are already preparing for the 2025 expiration of the 2017 Tax Cut and Jobs Act, which slashed the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%.

Negotiations over the law and some of the expiring provisions are shaping up to be the “tax Super Bowl,” said Brownstein’s Elshami, whose firm represents clients including Apollo Asset Management, Sequoia Capital and Exxon Mobil Corp. “We always plan on always being busy,” Elshami said.

The high levels of activity will “continue in the next quarter, especially in areas that Congress must address every year: appropriations and defense,” Akin partner Brian Pomper said in a statement.

Akin is one of several Big Law firms lobbying in Washington on the proposed $14.1 billion sale of US Steel to Nippon— a deal thathas garnered opposition from the White House and some Republican and Democratic lawmakers who want the steel corporation to remain in American hands.

US Steel paid a K&L Gates team including former Rep. Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.) $90,000 to lobby on issues related to the deal. The US steel company also paid $420,000 to Hogan Lovells and $40,000 to Mayer Brown for lobbying work. A team of more than a dozen people at Akin are working for Nippon, according to an April disclosure.