November 4, 2002
THE DAILY JOURNAL
By John Ryan
SAN DIEGO – David Odrich has switched firms and his geographic base in a move designed to add corporate strength to Pillsbury Winthrop’s San Diego presence.
The corporate and securities specialist joined the firm’s Carmel Valley office from the East Palo Alto post of San Francisco’s Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison.
“I prefer the southern region,” Odrich says of California. “Moving down here was not an issue. It was actually a positive.”
He joined the firm in mid-October.
Pillsbury Winthrop has 45 attorneys between its Carmel Valley and downtown San Diego offices.
Though Brobeck Phleger has lost at least 40 partners in the last year, Odrich says the attrition or firm instability did not play a role in his defection.
“I would have done this regardless of the situation at Brobeck,” he says. “This is just a perfect fit.”
Odrich says that his clients often need services in Australia and Asia, where Pillsbury Winthrop has offices and where Brobeck Phleger does not. Pillsbury Winthrop’s New York office, he believes, also is deeper than Brobeck Phleger’s.
With investment banking clients like Lehman Brothers, Salomon Smith Barney and Merrill Lynch, much of Odrich’s work comes from the East Coast.
Above all, Odrich lauds Pillsbury Winthrop’s team approach to handling client matters. Large clients are represented by attorneys from a variety of practice groups that form a cohesive, multidisciplinary team.
“That often gets lip service at other firms,” he says. “Pillsbury puts its money where its mouth is.”
Pillsbury Winthrop, in turn, was looking to add a partner to its growing San Diego presence.
“[He] will provide our clients the added resource of his broad experience in corporate equity and debt issues,” local managing partner Sue Hodges says.
A Brobeck Phleger representative declined to comment on Odrich’s departure other than to say that the firm wishes him well.
Lawrence Watanabe of San Diego’s Watanabe, Nason & Seltzer brokered the move.