February 3, 2000
THE SAN FRANCISCO DAILY JOURNAL
By Meredith Alexander
SAN FRANCISCO – Four corporate partners are leaving the San Jose office of Rosenblum Parish & Isaacs to join Pillsbury Madison & Sutro’s Silicon Valley office in Palo Alto. Rosenblum Parish, a mid-size firm with offices in San Jose and San Francisco, may also lose a number of associates to Pillsbury in a shift that some see as fallout from the ongoing salary inflation among Bay Area firms.
The partners moving to Pillsbury are Thomas F. Chaffin, Stephen M. Wurtzburg, David H. Jaffer and Barry Lee Katzman. Their practices include securities, venture capital financing, mergers and acquisitions, technology transfer and licensing, intellectual property transactions and patent prosecution. They represent a number of public and privately held high-tech companies.
None of the departing partners could be reached for comment Friday; nor could the managing partner of Rosenblum Parish, Charles P. Maher.
The move reflects the difficulties facing firms like Rosenblum Parish, according to legal recruiter Larry Watanabe of San Francisco’s Watanabe & Nason.
Many small to mid-size firms “are teetering on edge” because of the pull of high-tech company work centered in Palo Alto and Menlo Park, he said.
“For the [Rosenblum partners] going over to Pillsbury, it gives them a better platform to service their existing clients,” as well as opportunities to gain more clients, said Watanabe, whose firm brokered the move.
The recent salary increases at prominent Silicon Valley firms have made it all the harder on smaller firms, he said.
Part of the underlying problem is that smaller firms are not able to support large associate salaries.
The dichotomy is also reflected in location, as firms in the prestigious venture-capital hotbeds of Menlo Park and Palo Alto are growing quickly. Firms as near as San Jose have found it hard to get and retain good associates and attract clients.
“San Jose has fallen behind dramatically,” Watanabe said.
“It’s difficult to compete in that region. San Jose is an example where, by and large, first-year salaries are half of what the Menlo Park associates are making,” Watanabe said. The average first-year associate in a San Jose firm is making in the $60,000 range, he noted.
He foresees a “slew of associates” moving from the San Jose office of Rosenblum to Pillsbury or other firms.
The corporate partners making the switch “had multiple opportunities” at other firms, Watanabe said. “A wide variety” of firms were considered, he said, especially those with “a deeper corporate base in the Silicon Valley.” Some of the firms they considered are based in the area; others are national firms with Silicon Valley offices.
Mary B. Cranston, chair of Pillsbury, said in a statement: “A key strategic focus of Pillsbury is the continued expansion of our service to the high-tech and emerging business areas. We are extremely pleased that these highly experienced attorneys have chosen to join us.”