Hart, King & Coldren Adding Five Lawyers
By CHRIS CZIBORR
Santa Ana law firm Hart, King & Coldren plans to add five attorneys in the next month to its litigation and transactional practices.
The additions stand to give Hart, King & Coldren nine more attorneys than it had last year and a total of 29. The firm also is near the end of its Santa Ana lease and is looking for a larger space.
“In the next 60 days we’ll decide whether we’re going to stay where we are and expand or move to a new location,” said co-managing partner William Hart. “But we are looking for more space.”
Last year Hart said the firm showed a 10% rise in revenue from 2000 with another 10% gain projected this year, though he declined to offer a base figure.
The litigation side of the firm,with a 70% share of its business,is benefiting from the economic downturn and the legal disputes it has spawned, Hart said. Somewhat surprisingly, transactional work is on the rise too, he said, especially in real estate.
“Business and real estate transactions have really increased over the past couple of months,there appears to be a lot of optimism and enthusiasm going forward on the part of our clients,” Hart said.
Transactional work often is a barometer of general economic activity. Following the dot-com meltdown, transaction work for the firm fell dramatically, according to Hart.
“From our point of view, business activity for doing deals had waned quite a bit over the last year,” Hart said. “We’re starting to see that tick up, and we certainly have more transactional work than we’ve had in the recent past.”
Hart has lured transactional lawyer Krishan Chopra from Best, Best & Krieger LLP in Riverside. New litigation attorneys include Wayne Arnold, who is folding his Irvine law firm, Arnold & Herzog, into Hart, King & Coldren.
“He was doing well, but wanted more support and decided his practice was very compatible with ours,” Hart said.
Arnold has experience in employment litigation as well as representing property owners and managers. He had a 20-year stint with the Irvine and Arizona offices of St. Louis, Mo.-based Brian Cave LLP before forming his own law firm.
Lisa Herzog, an Arnold & Herzog partner, is set to join Hart later this month.
The other two new litigation attorneys are Steven Lowery, previously with Marlin & Saltzman of Anaheim, and Bethany LaFlam, a two-year litigator formerly with Quinn, Emanuel, Urquhart, Oliver & Hedges of Los Angeles.
