Los Angeles-based law firm Jeffer, Mangels, Butler & Marmaro LLP has hired a partner and an associate from Greenberg Traurig LLP to open an office in Costa Mesa.
Gordon A. Schaller, a longtime tax and estate planning lawyer in Orange County, was hired as managing partner of Jeffer Mangels’ Costa Mesa office last month.
Schaller started the Costa Mesa office of Miami-based Greenberg Traurig LLP three years ago. Jeffer Mangels’ office is close by at 695 Town Center Drive, across from South Coast Plaza.
The office opened last week.
Lawyer Scott Harsh-man, also from Green-berg’s Costa Mesa office, is joining Schal-ler at Jeffer Mangels.
The expansion here was a long time coming for Jeffer Mangels, the 12th-largest firm in Los Angeles, according to the Los Angeles Business Journal.
The firm has 125 lawyers there and another 25 in San Francisco.
“It’s clear that they had wanted to do this for a long time, because they have a lot of client relationships here,” Schaller said. “It was a natural extension of their existing practices.”
Lawyers from L.A. and San Francisco who have OC clients could work from the new office as needed, spokesman Jonathan Fitzgarrald said.
“Now they can work out of that office two or three days a week to better service those clients,” he said.
“We are full time, everywhere,” Schaller said. “That’s what I’ve done my whole legal career.”
Jeffer Mangels recruited Schaller,instead of bringing someone down from Los Angeles,because of his OC ties.
“Orange County business owners, real estate owners and high net worth people like having their lawyers involved in the community and in their everyday lives,” Schaller said. “It’s a very integrated community.”
Schaller, who is bringing clients with him, said he likes the “close nature” of Jeffer Mangels.
“It’s a California-based firm,” Schaller said. “For my clients in particular, that was what I was most interested in.”
The split with Greenberg was amicable, Schaller said.
His biggest task is recruiting lawyers to the Costa Mesa office while maintaining his practice, Schaller said.
“The plan is to get the word out in Orange County,” Schaller said. “I want to get all my clients acclimated and in the door.”
Jeffer Mangels’ long-term goal is to have about 50 lawyers who can represent all of the firm’s practices.
Recruiting is tough, Schaller said, because lawyers are hesitant to firm hop.
“Lawyers, by nature, are immovable objects,” he joked. “They are very loyal.”
Schaller should know,he spent 27 years at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP in Irvine.
Prior to joining Greenberg Traurig, Schaller was national managing director of estate, philanthropy and insurance services of myCFO Inc., which lived and died with the tech boom.
Schaller has his law degree from the University of Minnesota Law School and a bachelor’s from Iowa State University.
He lives in Irvine.
