Snell & Wilmer Keeping Busy, Adds Three Attorneys
By CHRIS CZIBORR
The Irvine office of Phoenix-based Snell & Wilmer LLP has added three lawyers to bring its county attorney roster to 49.
“We were up about 10% to 15% in sales last year over the previous year, which is healthy in any year, but given what’s going on in the economy and in the profession, I think that’s very healthy,” said office administrative partner Bill O’Hare. “We’ve got very broad growth over our practice areas, so our broad client base is helping.”
O’Hare said the firm’s strategy of avoiding reliance on a few large clients has helped Snell weather the economic downturn.
“Traditionally, we have never been too dependent on any single client for a very large percentage of our business,” he said. “So I think perhaps we’re less vulnerable to the situation where you rise with a client who may be growing rapidly, but then if they make up 20% of the work your lawyers are doing and the client leaves or something goes wrong, then you’re very vulnerable.”
The firm’s bankruptcy and litigation practices have seen upticks, O’Hare said.
“We’ve added to the bankruptcy practice this past year, and litigation, which is what I do, doesn’t show a lot of signs of going down,” O’Hare said. “Both our business litigation and trial work remain active. There’s a little bit of a lag effect,sometimes when there’s a general downturn in business activity there can be a short-term increase in bankruptcy and litigation work from an increase in business disputes as deals go bad.”
He said that the firm’s product liability practice has been “very busy”,Snell was involved in the Ford-Firestone litigation on behalf of Ford,but that transaction work is down.
“The softer areas are the business transactional side, whether it’s real estate or corporate,” O’Hare said. “That’s a general trend, although since we’re looking at longer term growth, we’ve looked at the downturns in those areas as opportunities for expansion.”
The firm has added seven lawyers over the past year, including some straight out of law school, senior partners with established practices from other firms and mid-level people from other firms. The hires range over most of Snell’s practice areas.
“Firms nationwide in the corporate and real estate fields are letting people go,including associates,” O’Hare said. “And we’re viewing that as an opportunity to attract lawyers from those practices.”
O’Hare said Snell hires aggressively during downturns. In the early 1990s as California headed into recession, Snell decided to expand its Orange County presence, a move O’Hare said yielded favorable results for the firm.
“Having gone through a previous growth cycle during that recession comforted us to know that we had the ability to grow smart even during a downtime,making intelligent strategic acquisitions and additions of well-regarded lawyers with top practices,” he said. “If you attract the right people the practice will take care of itself, so this is the second time in the history of our office that we have achieved strong growth during an economic downturn.”
O’Hare said that when a general business cycle picks up, law firms often are too busy to move quickly on hiring.
“And everyone is out there at the same time trying to attract people,” he said. “We do that too, but we also have a history of staying the course and growing the practice even during downtimes,when it’s a good time to regroup and build. It also conveys a positive message to lawyers that if a downturn happens we’re not going to throw everyone overboard.”
The three attorneys hired this month are Samantha LaPine, Tanya Mason and Brian Mills. LaPine is fresh out of school and her practice is concentrated in real estate and commercial finance, Mason, also hired out of school, has a practice concentrated in commercial litigation.
Mills, whose practice is concentrated in labor and employment, had previously been with Kean, Miller, Hawthorne, D’Armond, McCowan & Jarman LLP and was a Snell summer associate.
Founded in 1938, Snell & Wilmer has more than 360 attorneys in offices in the West.
