Duane Morris has its eye on growth in California, plotting expansion in practice areas adjacent to corporate work that is fueling red-hot demand.
"2022 is shaping up to be really busy in corporate finance, M&A, intellectual property and litigation. These are areas where we'll continue to ramp up, because we want to be staffed properly and have the right levels of talent for our clients," chairman and CEO Matt Taylor said in an interview this week, amid a recruiting trip along the West Coast, which was capped by a holiday party in the Los Angeles office on Friday.
Taylor, who visited all of the firm's U.S. offices over the summer, said he expects to continue to travel as he spends more time on recruitment efforts, which is taking up about 25% of his time these days. He noted the firm will continue to offer flexibility and transparency, and comply with all local, state and federal health guidelines as it monitors the pandemic and the omicron variant.
Philadelphia-born Duane Morris already has deep ties in the Golden State, with five outposts across San Francisco, Silicon Valley, Los Angeles, San Diego and Lake Tahoe. It's most recent opening in the state occurred in 2013, when the firm added a Silicon Valley office. And it's San Francisco office continues to tout a sizeable mass of about 75 lawyers-making it the firm's third-largest office.
Since 2019, it's added San Francisco corporate partner Gregory Chin, formerly of Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, along with two sets of intellectual property partners: Jennifer Lantz and Philip Woo, who bring experience from Hogan Lovells and Sidley Austin, and Lewis Roca alumni Terry Ahearn and Stuart Bartow, all of whom are based in Silicon Valley.
Taylor described Northern California and Los Angeles markets as "very competitive to grow in," but said the firm expects to see movement next year as it bolsters its corporate group with litigation, intellectual property and labor and employment lawyers to service existing transactional clients.
"Litigators, employment lawyers and intellectual property lawyers all gravitate towards corporate lawyers. As a large law firm, it is very important to have a full-service cadre of lawyers that service corporate clients," Taylor said.
Part of the recognition is evident in the firm's recent growth strategy, in which it moved away from organizing itself by practice groups, and instead started marketing its services to clients in key industries that it serves. In California, the firm is focused on financial institutions, technology, life sciences, cannabis, media, education and construction sectors.
"Clients assume we have great lawyers in various practice areas. But when you bring industry expertise and industry bona fides to a client in a specific industry, that is really powerful. It resonates with clients," Taylor said, noting the firm doubled down on cross-selling efforts amid the initial days of the pandemic, when clients were willing to meet with other lawyers in the firm via Zoom.
"We didn't split the atom on this," Taylor added. "But as law firms have gotten bigger and more sophisticated, it's a really logical, smart go-to-market strategy to focus on industries because clients want the firms that they like to do more for them."
Reprinted with permission from The Recorder, © ALM Media Properties LLC. All rights reserved.
