David Graeler Discusses How Strategic Succession Planning Can Help Drive Success

The Daily Journal featured Managing Partner David Graeler prominently in a front-page story titled “Can a well-executed succession plan drive up firm revenues?”.

Speaking to the publication, David noted Nossaman’s successful performance in 2025 could be partially attributed to strategic succession planning. He said, “[The firm] has spent several years preparing for leadership transitions across multiple practice groups, including its largest, Infrastructure.” He noted that founders of the group have retired or moved to part-time status, allowing a new generation of partners — many entering what he described as their professional prime — to assume lead roles. 

In 2025, as reported by the Daily Journal, Nossaman’s billable hours rose more than “13% year over year… Revenues climbed more than 11%, net income increased nearly 14% and profits per equity partner jumped more than 20%.”

Further discussing succession planning at the Firm, David said, “Similar leadership changes happened during the past several years for a number of practice groups… And most of our groups collectively have leaders who are very much in their prime. What we saw was organic growth across these practices.”

The Daily Journal highlighted that the transitions helped fuel a hiring push that expanded the firm from roughly 130 attorneys and policy advisors to more than 170. Much of the growth came at the associate and non-partner level as newly empowered partners saw demand rise and needed additional staffing to support their practices. 

“That leverage is very healthy for a law firm,” David added. He said Nossaman’s advantage was its experience navigating multiple generational transitions during its more than 80-year history. “Firms that have gone through several iterations of succession planning have a lower risk…It’s harder when a first-generation firm tries to do it for the first time.” 

David also said, “Leadership turnover can benefit firms when it aligns with the natural arc of legal careers,” and many of Nossaman’s practice group leaders are in their peak performance years, which helps drive success. He closed by discussing how the firm’s growth in 2025 was also aided by targeted lateral hires that brought substantial business with them but emphasized that the broader story was not simply lateral expansion. “It wasn’t just that we brought in new laterals and got more work,” he said. “Our own people were getting busier, and we needed to ramp up staffing to support them… That’s why there are some good stories to tell here.”