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Rutan Taps Malkani as Executive Director

Malkani: was CFO at Stradling

Rutan & Tucker LLP has named Tony Malkani its new executive director to replace Rich Boden, who is stepping down from the job after 37 years to pursue mission work for the Mormon church in the U.K.

Costa Mesa-based Rutan is the second-largest law office in Orange County, with 134 attorneys as of January.

Boden oversaw the firm’s day-to-day operations, including various department managers.

Malkani has been working alongside Boden for the past five months in preparation for the transition. He came to Rutan & Tucker from the post of chief financial officer at Newport Beach-based law firm Stradling Yocca Carlson & Rauth P.C., the third-largest law office here with 89 attorneys.

“Stradling didn’t have a defined executive director position, and as CFO, I handled a lot of those responsibilities,” said Malkani, who was with the firm for 14 years and had prior stints at Jones Day in Irvine and what is now Squire Sanders in Los Angeles, among others.

“The transition has been a lot easier than I’d expected,” Malkani said. “Rutan’s culture is such that I was able to come in and adapt. Despite being a large firm in OC, it has managed to preserve its family and collegial culture.”

Neither Boden nor Malkani is an attorney.

Boden joined Rutan in 1976, during “an era in which most firms did not have non-lawyers managing their firms,” he said. “They knew the value of someone that could manage a business.”

He had worked with a land developer in Utah and a retail chain earlier in his career.

“I’m leaving Rutan with mixed feelings, but I’m looking forward to a new life,” Boden said. “I have accepted an assignment with the [Latter-day Saints] church to serve … in Great Britain for 18 months. I’ll be in the Birmingham area, working in [the church’s] welfare office.”

He and his wife, Carolyn, are set to leave in May, after completing two weeks of training in Salt Lake City.

Malkani said Rutan’s long-standing designation of having an executive director to oversee business was a draw.

“The firm had a business manager in a time when most law firms didn’t believe in business management,” Malkani said. “That was something that pulled me. The other thing is, it’s a really close-knit group of partners. That’s really important to any firm.”

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