A new article in The Hill highlights Thorn Run Partners (TRP) as one of Washington's fastest growing lobbying shops, pointing to the firm's "massive growth" over the last year. Citing recent analysis from Bloomberg Government, the article notes that TRP has shown a relatively high rate of client retention, and since 2010 "has grown from a two-person shop into a 20-person firm." As TRP founding Partner Andy Rosenberg explains in the article, "our firm is largely made up of refugees from bigger firms, and what we love about our boutique mentality is that we're not locked into a cost structure that requires that we look at every challenge as a nail just because we've got a really expensive hammer."
The Hill: K Street’s gains felt at boutique firms, too
K Street surged in the early months of 2015, and the uptick in business ushered in by the new Republican Congress was felt well beyond Washington’s biggest lobby shops.
Many smaller lobby and law firms saw relative gains, according to new analysis generated by Bloomberg Government and provided to The Hill.
Smaller firms have long decried the standard practice of evaluating Washington’s top shops by earnings alone, arguing it puts them at a disadvantage by appearing to not keep up with their much larger counterparts.
When looking at the figures posted by K Street for the first three months of the year, analysts instead ranked industry players on year-over-year increases in total and average per-client revenue, fees per lobbyist and client retention rates.
“If you take a hard look at all three of those,” said Randy Russell, the founder of The Russell Group, which ranked high on the list, “that's what you look for in a business and what it takes to be successful.”
Thorn Run Partners, which has grown from a two-person shop into a 20-person firm, also showed massive growth over last year. Additionally, 62 percent of its clients have stayed with the firm for at least three years.“Our firm is largely made up of refugees from bigger firms, and what we love about our boutique mentality is that we're not locked into a cost structure that requires that we look at every challenge as a nail just because we've got a really expensive hammer,” said Andy Rosenberg, a partner at the firm and former employee at Ogilvy Government Relations and Patton Boggs, now Squire Patton Boggs.