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Blank Rome to open office in Los Angeles

Even as the legal industry contracts, Center City law firm Blank Rome said yesterday that it would open a new office in Los Angeles, where its lawyers would focus on real estate, intellectual property, and entertainment law.

Even as the legal industry contracts, Center City law firm Blank Rome said yesterday that it would open a new office in Los Angeles, where its lawyers would focus on real estate, intellectual property, and entertainment law.

The firm said that it had hired five new partners for the office, which will be in Los Angeles' Century City section, a locus of the city's legal profession, and that it anticipated hiring more lawyers in the coming months.

"California is a critical market for us," said Carl Buchholz, managing partner and CEO of Blank Rome, a 500-plus-lawyer firm. "We serve more than 200 existing clients in California. Our view is that the downturn will end at some point in time and we are building a platform to take off when it does."

The announcement underscores the difficult balance that many law firms must strike as clients economize, revenues shrink, and firm managers are forced to cut costs after years of growth.

Many law firms in Philadelphia and around the nation are in the midst of wrenching staff reductions. San Francisco-based Latham & Watkins let go 190 lawyers and 240 staff Friday in what was described as the biggest lawyer layoff in the United States. Weeks earlier, about 700 lawyers were let go in one day at firms around the country. And Blank Rome itself recently trimmed 20 lawyers from its offices around the country. In January, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that year to year, employment in legal services declined 1.3 percent across the country.

Yet even as the industry shrinks, many law firms are expanding practice groups such as bankruptcy and litigation that remain profitable.

In December, Center City's Duane Morris law firm announced that it was adding 19 lawyers to its construction practice in New York. The group came from the Thelen law firm of San Francisco, which dissolved last year after a series of business setbacks and partner defections.

In Blank Rome's case, the firm expects its Los Angeles lawyers to team up with its 18-lawyer office in Hong Kong, helping clients engineer transactions in both the United States and Asia.

Like other large firms, Blank Rome aims for broad geographic reach so that it can represent clients in multiple jurisdictions.

Buchholz said the Los Angeles office would also have a substantial focus on entertainment, construction finance, and intellectual-property law. Buchholz said that each of the new partners will bring substantial new clients to the firm, a tried-and-true strategy for limiting the risk of expansion.

Buchholz acknowledged the firm was making its move at a time of great uncertainty, but he said the new 12,000-square-foot office represented a modest investment in exchange for potential growth.

"We are certainly aware of the environment, and we are looking at the things that law firm leadership should be looking at," said Buchholz, who described the firm's growth plans as "careful and measured."

The firm has nine offices in the United States and an office in Hong Kong.

In Washington, Blank Rome has a substantial lobbying arm, in addition to traditional practice areas that include international trade, defense, and white collar defense.

Among more routine work, its lobbyists have been spending the last six months advising financial services clients on how to tap into federal assistance aimed at defusing the financial crisis.