June 5, 2014

LOS ANGELES DAILY JOURNAL
By Joshua Sebold

LOS ANGELES – With addition of 21 attorneys, the Kansas City firm will double LA office, open in SF.

McKenna Long & Aldridge LLP is losing at least 21 attorneys, including seven partners, primarily in its toxic torts practice in Los Angeles to the fast-growing Kansas City-based firm Polsinelli LLP.

The move is set to roughly double the size of Polsinelli’s L.A. office, which opened in 2011, as well as launch a San Francisco office for the firm. But for McKenna Long, it marks yet another round of departures after the firm nixed a proposed merger with Dentons in November. McKenna has lost at least 19 partners in Southern California since April.

Farah S. Nicol, leader of McKenna’s toxic tort practice group in Los Angeles, and Stephen M. Nichols, head of the litigation department’s product liability and toxic tort division, are leaving with the vast majority of Nicol’s 25-lawyer team. In all, seven partners and at least 14 other attorneys are expected to make the move.

The attorneys have provided notices of resignation but have yet to be released by McKenna Long.
“We are very pleased to have this talented group of lawyers join our firm,” Polsinelli LLP Chairman W. Russell Welsh said in an email. “With 740 attorneys firm wide we look forward to continuing to expand in Los Angeles and now in San Francisco.”

Other partners are toxic tort team members David K. Schultz, Barbara Z. Safechuck, Susan W. Gilefsky and Matthew K. Ashby, along with environmental and real estate partner Ryan S. Landis.

A McKenna Long representative wished the departing partners well in an email: “These lawyers work primarily on California asbestos litigation matters and have expressed commitment to a regional growth strategy.”

It has been a difficult beginning to the year for McKenna Long after its partnership flirted with marrying the international firm Dentons.

“Since the exposure of the merger discussion with Dentons late last year, McKenna Long has lost a significant contingent of partners in California,” said Solana Beach legal recruiter Larry Watanabe, who said he brokered the deal.

Watanabe was also involved in the move of another large group of McKenna partners to Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP in April. Those partners became part of McKenna Long as a result of its 2012 merger with Luce, Forward, Hamilton & Scripps LLP, a San Diego-based real estate firm.

Shortly after, corporate partner John L. Babala joined Polsinelli, and real estate partner Katie A. Jacobsen left for Liner LLP.

“I suspect there will be further departures,” Watanabe said.

Meanwhile, Polsinelli is trending in the opposite direction.

“They’ve been in growth mode in L.A. and have made some really significant additions from major law firms,” Watanabe said. “They’re one of the faster growing law firms in the country.”

Polsinelli opened in Los Angeles by acquiring the 12-attorney Quateman LLP, bringing on name partner Lisa Greer Quateman as managing partner.

The firm added six attorneys over the next 2½ years and will now double the size of its Los Angeles office with the new additions, to roughly 40 lawyers.