Virtual law firm FisherBroyles announced Tuesday that it has cracked the Am Law 200, saying it's the first non-traditional, so-called distributed law firm to rank among the top 200 highest-grossing U.S. firms.

The 300-partner firm said its annual gross revenue reached $113 million in 2020, adding that in the last year alone it added 51 new partners "almost entirely from Am Law 100 and 200 ranked firms." It cited the role of the pandemic, which upended expectations about remote work, in spurring its growth and accelerating the adoption of its mostly cloud-based approach to legal services.

At traditional law firms, meanwhile, the acceptance of a remote work model goes beyond promising to be more flexible about in-person hours after the pandemic. Husch Blackwell, for example, continues to add to its virtual office, dubbed The Link. The firm created the virtual office last summer, allowing it to recruit outside of its physical office footprint. Husch last week added Charleston-based financial services and capital markets partners Jason Walton and Cartwright (Carty) Bibee to its virtual team from K&L Gates.

Shook, Hardy & Bacon last week said it is absorbing virtual technology transactions boutique Ragen Swan, which will integrate into Shook's Seattle office. Partner Amy Ragen will chair the firm's new technology transactions practice group, a hot area in which several other big firms have also been adding firepower.