Los Angeles-based Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP has added 10 lawyers to its real estate, land use and environmental practice in Costa Mesa.
Eight of the lawyers came from Boston-based Bingham McCutchen LLP and made up the entire land-use practice in the Costa Mesa office. The other two lawyers left the Irvine office of San Francisco-based Sedgwick, Detert, Moran & Arnold LLP.
The new hires are set to work on real estate deals, litigation and environmental issues such as land entitlements, permits and land-use and environmental lawsuits.
Adding more lawyers to Sheppard Mullin’s real estate, land-use and environmental practice should help the firm drive business, administrative partner Robert Beall said.
“The addition of lawyers gives our real estate practice a big boost,” Beall said. “We’ve been looking to add more people to this practice. It just made sense because Orange County is a real estate driven economy.”
Housing development has slowed, but legal work related to construction and lawsuits triggered by the economic slump will keep the new lawyers busy, Beall contends.
General corporate representation for real estate clients also is expected to be a growth area for the firm as more companies restructure their business plans to adapt to changes in the market, he said.
On the land use and environmental side, increased federal and state regulations on air and water quality, hazardous wastes and the preservation of land and endangered species should help the firm generate more business from developers and companies that need help with zoning, permits and lawsuits, according to Beall.
“The lawyers will be busy,” he said. “There’s still a lot of work that’s related to the real estate industry.”
The added real estate lawyers up Sheppard Mullin’s OC headcount to about 65 lawyers. The firm ranked No. 11 on the Business Journal’s January list of law firms before the new hires.
In addition to real estate and land use, Sheppard Mullin’s OC office has practices in corporate and finance work and bankruptcy workouts. Its clients include Fullerton-based Beckman Coulter Inc., Newport Beach-based The Irvine Company and Carlsbad-based Taylor Made Golf Co., part of Germany’s Adidas AG.
Changing Competition
Sheppard Mullin plans to add more lawyers at its OC office this year, according to Beall.
The firm is set to compete with others with real estate and land use practices such as Los Angeles-based Allen Matkins Leck Gamble Mallory & Natsis LLP’s Irvine office, which has 63 lawyers, and Irvine-based Jackson DeMarco Tidus Petersen Peckenpaugh, which has 68 lawyers.
The move comes as some firms are putting less emphasis on real estate practices in favor of more lucrative corporate work such as securities litigation, private equity financing and mergers and acquisitions.
Sheppard Mullin’s move leaves Bingham’s OC office without a land use practice. But Bingham doesn’t plan to add any land-use lawyers and instead plans to grow its corporate and litigation practices, according to managing partner James Loss.
“Our Orange County office has very strong corporate and litigation practices, and we will continue to expand the office in these areas,” he said.
Bingham, which ranked No. 39 on the Business Journal’s law firm list, counted 23 attorneys before the departure of its land-use group. The firm’s OC office now counts 15 lawyers who focus on general corporate representation, securities work, litigation, mergers and acquisitions and private equity financing.
Bingham’s OC office had its own share of recruiting in recent years.
In 2006, it recruited seven attorneys from Newport Beach’s Stradling Yocca Carlson & Rauth. It brought in Stradling partner Robert Funsten to anchor its West Coast healthcare practice last year.
