Established law firms have been opening up offices in Santa Monica as they attempt to cozy up to the Westside’s growing tech community. But one of L.A.’s biggest, Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton, is trying to get even closer.
Since late last year, the downtown L.A. firm has taken up a room in Santa Monica co-working facility Real Office Centers, where as many as 150 tech startups and other companies work side by side.
Though some solo practitioners and smaller law firms have been known to take space at co-working facilities, Brian Pass, head of the digital business group at Sheppard Mullin, said he knew of no other big firms that are mixing in with L.A. startups in that manner.
“We could always have opened up another office,” he said. “But is that what entrepreneurs need from us, or do they need access and availability and a nonintimidating, open attitude? … We thought it would be a better approach to embed ourselves smack in the entrepreneurial community.”
He said the firm’s Santa Monica space is not much different than that of other startups – which also saves on costs compared with opening a permanent outpost. It has enough space for two desks, a filing cabinet and two computers, and a piece of wall art inherited from a nearby former startup.
There are one or two Sheppard Mullin attorneys working in the room per day, alternating in shifts. In February, the firm set daily office hours when entrepreneurs could come ask for free legal advice on everything from trademarks to labor and employment.
The firm has picked up clients this way, but it’s still a work in progress, said Pass, 50.
“It’s a process,” he said. “These are early stage companies, and any law firm that works with early stage companies is going to have hits and misses like a venture capital firm would.”
Radio Star
Hugh Hewitt is best known as a conservative radio host and media personality. But he’s also been practicing law for decades as a land-use and environmental attorney.
This month, Hewitt took a team of five litigators from his Newport Beach boutique, Hewitt Wolensky & McNulty, and joined the rapidly growing downtown L.A. office of Arent Fox. Hewitt said he received overtures from several firms looking to jump into the Southern California market, but picked Arent because of his friendship with several attorneys there, including Robert O’Brien, office managing partner. O’Brien was an adviser to Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign and has appeared on Hewitt’s show.
“Most successful mergers start out of friendship as opposed to a business plan,” Hewitt said. “The plan has to make sense but the friendship has to be there first.”
Hewitt, 58, is also expected to help clients with crisis management due to his media and political experience. He was a ghostwriter for Richard Nixon’s book “The Real War” and served in the Reagan White House as assistant counsel. Also joining as partner is Gary Wolensky, who specializes in products liability litigation.
The addition of Hewitt’s team continues the remarkable growth of Washington, D.C.’s Arent in Los Angeles. No firm has added more attorneys in Los Angeles since 2010, according to the Business Journal’s annual law firm survey. The firm has 85 attorneys here, up from 33 attorneys four years ago. It is currently emphasizing recruitment of corporate and real estate attorneys, O’Brien said.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if we were at 100 or 110 (in a couple of years),” he said. “We don’t have a target but based on what we’ve seen, that’s where we’re headed.”
New Outpost
Trial lawyer Mark Neubauer was recruited eight years ago by Washington, D.C.’s Steptoe & Johnson to open a Century City office for the firm, eventually building it up to some 35 attorneys. Now, he’s been hired by Tampa, Fla.’s Carlton Fields Jorden Burt to repeat that success.
Neubauer, 63, opened a Century City office in mid-April for Carlton Fields with just him and another attorney, and aims to build it to about 25 or 30 within the next couple of years. The firm has experience in class-action defense and is targeting such cases here in California, along with other kinds of legal work.
“Class actions are prominent in California for a variety of reasons,” he said. “This is one of the things the firm was looking at.”
The opening follows a merger in the fall between Carlton Fields and Jorden Burt, resulting in a firm with 370 attorneys. The firm’s leaders want to be in select major markets, and clients with a California presence pressured the new firm to open an office in Los Angeles, said firm Chief Executive Gary L. Sasso.
“We’re charting out a position,” he said. “We’re not trying to be everywhere and we’re not trying to be huge. We’d like to stay under 500 lawyers, but we’re in major markets.”
Staff reporter Alfred Lee can be reached at [email protected] or (323) 549-5225, ext. 221
