K Street extended its the Trump-era boom with high earnings in the first quarter of 2020, with lobbying for coronavirus relief getting started after Washington's earlier focus on impeachment and the upcoming election.

Lobbying Disclosure Act (LDA) reports released Monday show that sustained gains during the first three months of the year, building off of hefty quarterly revenue ever since President Trump took office.

From January through March, Akin Gump, the highest-grossing firm, reported a record $12.6 million in revenue, a double-digit increase from its $11.4 million in the fourth quarter of 2019.

“The last year and, particularly, the last quarter have really showed the benefits of our firm’s strengths in the policy and regulatory arenas combining to assist our clients in very challenging times," Hunter Bates, head of the public law and policy practice at Akin Gump, told The Hill. "On the heels of our record-breaking year for LDA revenue in 2019, we were pleased to continue that strong performance into 2020 with our strongest-ever quarter.”

Akin Gump brought in $42.6 million last year overall.

Bates predicted that the coronavirus will keep lobbyists busy.

“The lobbying activity around COVID-19 came late in the quarter and had minimal pact on our Q1 numbers. That being said, every sector of the global economy is impacted by COVID-19 so the issues and the industries are equally far-reaching,” he said. “We believe that the frenetic pace will continue in the coming months as Congress and the Trump Administration continue to focus on both responding to and recovering from the pandemic.”

Early signs indicate that activity is already increasing for the second quarter with an influx of coronavirus relief-related lobbying.

Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck during the first quarter reported over $11.5 million in revenue, matching the previous quarter's figures, but outpacing the nearly $9.2 million the firm brought in for the first three months of 2019.

“We’ve got another great quarter based on the fact that I think Washington remains very active and that, despite the conventional wisdom, politics of impeachment and the president election had not overtaken activities on all fronts,” said Marc Lampkin, government relations department chair.

Brownstein brought in over $40.7 million in 2019.

BGR Group reported over $7.8 million for the first quarter, the same as the fourth quarter of 2019. The amount, however, was up from the nearly $6.9 million it reported in the first quarter of last year.

Squire Patton Boggs and Holland & Knight both reported roughly the same revenue as last quarter, at just under $6.7 million and $6.4 million, respectively.

K Street faced a challenging task at the beginning of the year, with impeachment and election year politics threatening to slow business overall. 

“Time has bent in such a weird way that when I think back to quarter one, I’m like, ‘Where did all that work come from?’” said Rich Gold, practice group leader at Holland & Knight. “I expected this year to be relatively flat. This year for us, in terms of disclosures and lobbying revenue, will be good.”

He said he expected the next 18 months to be even busier as industries and lawmakers work to get the economy moving again. Gold compared it to between January 2009 and July 2010, when he said revenue was up 45 percent as businesses were climbing out of the financial crisis.

Mid-size firms also saw an increase in revenue last quarter.

Democratic operative Heather Podesta’s firm Invariant reported over $4.8 million in revenue, up nearly 2 percent from the previous three months. Compared to the same quarter last year, revenue was up nearly 40 percent.

K&L Gates followed closely behind with nearly $4.7 million in revenue in the first quarter. Mehlman Castagnetti Rosen & Thomas reported a little less than $4.6 million.

Forbes-Tate reported nearly $4.3 million.

Additionally, Cassidy & Associates reported $4 million in revenue, while Hogan Lovells reported just under $3 million in the first quarter.