Intellectual property and real estate related work helped drive growth at Orange County law firms in the past year.
OC’s 50 biggest law firms reported a
3% increase in lawyers to 1,905, versus a year earlier, according to this week’s Business Jour-nal list, which ranks firms by the number of attorneys based in the county.
That’s in line with the 3% gain on last year’s list.
Despite the overall growth, law firms at the top of the list showed little change or a slight drop in number of attorneys, while a number of smaller to midsize law offices grew their attorney rosters by a decent percentage. They did so by cherry picking from a number of firms, usually with smaller offices in OC that do not appear on the list.
The top six firms on the list are unchanged from a year ago. No. 1 Rutan & Tucker LLP had no trouble hanging on to the top spot. The firm had 135 OC-based attorneys,the same as the previous year.
Rutan managing partner Jeffrey Oderman sees a big opportunity for the midsize law firm. He said large national firms focused on attracting big clients.
“The low-hanging fruit is falling to the firms that are more our sort,” Oderman said.
Oderman said Rutan expects to have about 145 attorneys a year from now.
No. 2 Newport Beach-based Stradling, Yocca, Carlson & Rauth saw a 7% dip in their attorney count to 107. Bruce Feuchter, a partner and member of Stradling’s executive committee, said the firm,like Rutan,hopes to attract business from emerging growth companies.
Feuchter said large firms have priced out smaller companies.
“They’ve got to go somewhere,” he said. “We’re still waiting to see what they end up doing.”
No. 3 Knobbe, Martens, Olson & Bear LLP reported a 16% drop in its attorney count to 103. Managing partner James Bear attributed the decline to attrition, and said that the firm expects to add about 24 associates this year.
“We do almost all of our hiring right out of law school, so there’s a real long lead time,” Bear said.
The firm hires summer associates while they’re in their second year of law school, and then takes them on full time after they complete their law degrees.
“Last year’s fall class was a small class,” he said. “In general things went flat after Sept. 11 and we’re still recovering from that.”
A big gainer on the list was No. 13 Irvine-based Jackson, DeMarco & Peckenpaugh, which moved up 10 spots from last year. The firm grew its OC attorney roster by 43% to 43.
Growth in the firm’s real estate, land use and corporate groups drove the gains, said Jackson, DeMarco President Ruth Mijuskovic. The firm expects to add five to 10 attorneys during the next year.
Another firm that had a big jump was the Costa Mesa office of Los Angeles-based Stephan, Oringher, Richman & Theodora. The firm leaped 16 spots to No. 34 by growing its OC attorney roster 50% to 24.
“Now that we’ve been in Orange County several years our roots here are growing deeper. We’re doing more local work for companies that do a lot of business in Orange County,” attorney Todd Theodora said.
Stephan, Oringher is working one of OC’s highest profile cases: It’s representing Anaheim-based Angels Baseball LP in its tussle with the city of Anaheim over the team’s renaming.
Four law firms are new to the list.
Debuting at No. 41 was the Irvine office of Seattle-based Preston, Gates & Ellis LLP, which grew its OC attorney count 50% to 21.
“Preston, Gates has committed to establishing a real presence in the Southern California market, and has chosen Orange County as the venue for doing that,” said David Perry, managing partner of the Irvine office.
OC is a draw for law firms looking to set up shop in Southern California.
“Los Angeles is a very big and diverse market,it’s tough to crack that market because there are some very big players up there already. And San Diego is pretty provincial, so a lot of firms have a hard time there,” he said.
The Newport Beach office of No. 42 San Francisco-based Gordon & Rees LLP is a list first-timer with 20 local attorneys.
“We’ve been adding attorneys who already handle OC clients, including areas like the automotive sector here,” said partner Doug Smith.
Also debuting on the list was No. 45 Foothill Ranch-based Marshack, Shulman, Hodgets & Bastian LLP, with 19 attorneys, up 36% versus a year earlier.
The Costa Mesa office of No. 45 Miami-based Greenberg Traurig LLP rounds out the newcomers with 19 attorneys.
Gordon Schaller, who heads the firm’s Costa Mesa office, said Greenberg Traurig’s IP, corporate, real estate, litigation and tax practices are growing. The Irvine Company and New Century Financial Corp. are clients of the firm.
