Duane Morris, advancing its industry-focused growth strategy, has brought on real estate lawyer Tom Galli in Washington, D.C., and state and local tax attorney Lauren Ferrante in Chicago.
Executives at the Philadelphia-headquartered Am Law firm say the recent partner hires—coming from Seyfarth Shaw and McDermott Will & Emery, respectively—exemplify the firm’s strategic growth plan. That plan involves organizing attorneys into industry groups in which they can work across expertise to provide clients with a broad range of services.
“The typical service model at law firms has been practice group-driven,” said Matt Taylor, the firm’s chairman and CEO, in an interview Monday. “Clients, we have discovered, assume that you have great trial lawyers and transactional lawyers, but they also want to know that you are completely dedicated to their cause, 24/7, and they want to know you are an expert in their industry.”
The “centerpiece” of Duane Morris’ strategic plan, Taylor said, is what he called an “industry initiative.” After he became CEO, the firm began making plans in early 2018 to concentrate on growing its market share in key industries by having attorneys collaborate across practices to serve the firm’s most profitable industry sectors.
“Our industry initiative helps bring lawyers across practice groups together to help tackle a common cause that would be market share in different industries,” he said. Taylor said the firm’s most profitable industry sectors are financial institutions, technology, health and life sciences, infrastructure and consumer and safety products, which drew 90% of the firm’s revenue in 2018 when firm leaders were devising the strategy.
For Ferrante, who worked in the State and Local Taxes (SALT) practice at McDermott, the vision for the firm’s strategic plan “matches [her] level of commitment that she aims to bring to [her] own practice,” she said. Ferrante represents taxpayers in multistate and local tax matters, including all states of controversy disputes at the audit, administrative and judicial levels, and has extensive experience defending clients against tax claims under state false claims acts.
“I thought [the strategic plan] really serves as a solid foundation for the future of the firm,” Ferrante, who began at the firm on Jan. 4, said in an interview. “Another aspect of the firm I found attractive was the collaborative culture across practice groups, offices and the ability to cross-sell, for a tax practice such as mine, really serves to enhance my practice and add value to the clients of the firm.”
Taylor, the firm chairman, said the firm’s approach to collaboration has lured talent.
“Lawyers are attracted to collaboration, but that collaboration needs to be managed, and it needs to be encouraged in everything you do, and that’s from recruiting to marketing to how you compensate your lawyers,” he added.
Galli, a former partner with Seyfarth who began work at Duane Morris on Dec. 31, is well-respected among his peers, Taylor said, given his more than 30 years of experience representing clients on Real Estate transactions and developments for properties of various types: mixed-use, office, industrial, stadium, arena and multifamily dwelling. Regularly representing private equity firms, developers and government agencies, Galli said in a statement that Duane Morris provides him with a “strategic fit” for clients[.] ...
Reprinted with permission from The Legal Intelligencer, © ALM Media Properties LLC. All rights reserved.
