Second Generation of Attorneys Keeps Boutique Firm Up to Date

By AMANDA BRONSTAD

Staff Reporter

Norman Tyre, who died in January at the age of 91, had been coming to work every day until a couple of months before his death, climbing the five flights of stairs to the firm’s Rodeo Drive offices in Beverly Hills.

The last founding partner of boutique Gang Tyre Ramer & Brown Inc., Tyre had represented Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, but perhaps more impressively, he had resisted the temptation to “Grow or Die.”

“The biggest challenge is not growing, not trying to chase new business at the expense of current business,” said Harold Brown, partner at the 15-lawyer firm. “This is a business of being comfortable, of being who we are. That would be a problem if we lost that focus.”

With Tyre gone, the firm is now in the hands of the second generation of partners, a feat uncommon among smaller practices.

Boutique firms, which often specialize in a single practice area, generally have fewer than 50 attorneys. Choosing to stay small is a challenge. As the workload of partners grows, there is the temptation to broaden the practice or bring on more associates, who in turn have the ambition to become partners. This creates a cycle that can lead to growth.

Transitioning to the next generation is particularly difficult for boutiques because they aren’t as skilled or as interested in firm growth and planning, said Edward Poll of LawBiz Management Co., a consulting firm in Venice.

Generally speaking, most boutiques either go out of business or sell to a larger general practice firm after the founders leave or die. When a transition does happen, it must be done gradually. That means the senior partners should be thinking of the firm’s growth strategy while they’re in their 40s, Poll said.

Sulmeyer Kupetz Baumann & Rothman PC, a bankruptcy boutique founded in downtown L.A. in 1952, has been dealing with its first generational transition, said David Kupetz, a partner at the firm. The managing partner of the firm, Alan Tippie, took over the position in the 1980s when he was in his 30s, Kupetz said.

“He became managing partner at a young age, while the senior people were fully active in terms of their careers,” Kupetz said. “Partners were able to develop their own network and refer sources and contacts, transitioning them or developing new ones in a manner that allows the firm to thrive. In that sense, I think that helped facilitate the transition in management of the firm.”

Gang Tyre, founded in the 1931, has represented a host of show business royalty over the years, from Bob Hope and Jess Oppenheimer, creator of “I Love Lucy,” to Ben Stiller and Janet Jackson. The firm is now headed by partners Brown, 50, Donald Passman, 56, and Bruce Ramer, 68.

Reflecting the era in which it was formed, Gang Tyre doesn’t advertise. It avoids the press. Its partners don’t attend film premieres or recruiting events. And the firm rarely hires new associates. Yet it has managed to ink younger clients like Martin Lawrence, Mariah Carey and Ashley Judd.

Danjaq LLP, producer of the James Bond films and a long-term client, was gradually shifted from Tyre to younger partner Kevin Marks during the past seven or eight years. David Pope, chief operating officer of Danjaq, said it didn’t feel like much of a change since Marks had been handling much of Danjaq’s work since the 1980s.

“There are people who hustle to go to the film markets,” Brown said of competing firms that grow their practices. “Some will be established overnight because they’ll land the next Spielberg. But we’re more likely to get the next big Spielberg by getting a referral from Spielberg himself.”

Necessary niche

Gang Tyre hit a crossroads about 10 years ago when founding partner Martin Gang was forced to decide whether to continue the firm’s litigation practice. The resources needed to take on leading litigation firms like O’Melveny & Myers and Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP had become more than the firm could handle, and Gang dropped the practice rather than grow to meet the competition.

Despite the challenges of keeping the business small, Poll said the boutique will not disappear. They survive because they can provide more intimate service than larger, institutional firms and, said Poll, can provide partners with pay commensurate with the bigger competition.

In entertainment, for instance, a number of boutiques can net between $500,000 and $1 million in profits per partner comparable to the leading profits in L.A. at the major firms.

“Your practice area has to be where the money is,” Poll said. “They’ve got the same clientele for long periods of time, and their clientele wants to deal with the top lawyer, not with the associate, and certainly not with the first-year associate. And they’re willing to pay more money for that lawyer.”

But those types of clients don’t always come knocking. Most boutiques believe that in order to land new clients, they must hire the right people to find them.

“We hire really smart lawyers, and we hope first and foremost they’re great lawyers,” said Melanie Cook, a partner at 25-attorney entertainment boutique Bloom Hergott Diemer & Cook LLP. “After they’ve been working for a while, we encourage them to go out and develop their own practices.”

At Gang Tyre, “the mantle has long been passed,” Brown said. “Norman’s passing is a big loss to us because he was a close friend and confidant. Will there be a vacuum in leadership? No. Will there be changes? No. But there will be a loss.”