DLA law firm plans expansion in Phila.
DLA Piper, the world's second-largest law firm by number of lawyers, has set its sights on growing in Philadelphia. Philadelphia managing partner Carl Buchholz said DLA plans to double its lawyers here to around 100 within a few years, building on its litigation and intellectual-property practices.
DLA Piper, the world's second-largest law firm by number of lawyers, has set its sights on growing in Philadelphia.
Philadelphia managing partner Carl Buchholz said DLA plans to double its lawyers here to around 100 within a few years, building on its litigation and intellectual-property practices.
Although revenue from corporate clients industry-wide has seen only tepid growth in recent years, DLA leaders say they are confident that the firm's national and global platforms will draw the lawyers they want to recruit and new clients.
"We have picked certain markets to grow in, and Philadelphia is one of them," Buchholz said in a recent interview.
The firm has been relying on recruiters and its practice group leaders around the United States to find candidates for its Philadelphia office.
Buchholz and James Brogan, DLA's U.S. litigation co-chair, say they expect continued growth in the firm's litigation and intellectual-property areas, as well as the corporate and commercial real estate practices, among others.
What makes the DLA growth plan notable is that the legal market in Philadelphia is mature and thus not a place where big firms from outside the city typically seek to grow.
Ward Bower, an analyst at the Newtown Square-based legal consulting firm Altman Weil, said that Buchholz, who had been managing partner at Center City's Blank Rome and a senior lawyer on the White House staff before jumping to DLA, likely is the driving force behind the expansion.
"He is an accomplished manager, and he is really well-connected to Philadelphia businesses," Bower said.
DLA has been on a steady growth trajectory since the late 1990s, when Baltimore-based Piper Marbury merged with Chicago-based Rudnick & Wolfe. In 2005, Piper Rudnick then merged with Gray Cary Ware & Freidenrich of San Diego, and DLA of the United Kingdom.
The firm now has 4,200 lawyers in 80 offices in the United States and abroad.
That number places it second only to Dentons, a global law firm with a large presence in China and 6,500 lawyers worldwide.
Most recently, DLA picked up 20 lawyers at its office in Hamburg, Germany. The firm now has about 200 lawyers in the booming German market alone, according to American Lawyer magazine. Its Paris office four years ago had 50 lawyers. Now, there are about 180.
"When the firm decides to do something, it does it," Brogan said.
But DLA's profitability is below that of other firms in its peer group, a consequence of expansion into international markets where lawyer compensation in some places is below that of the United States and Europe.
According to American Lawyer, DLA's profits per partner of $1,490,000 ranked No. 50 among large firms, below those of locally based Dechert L.L.P., ranked No. 20 with profits per partner of $2,315,000, and Morgan Lewis, ranked No. 43 with profits per partner of $1,610,000.
Buchholz said the key to the Philadelphia office expansion is the breadth of the entire firm, giving lawyers the capability of connecting clients with a global network of legal services.
In the U.S., for example, lawyers are linked with one another through sophisticated Cisco video-conferencing technology that allows participants in multiple offices to conduct meetings in real time with clear video images and no perceptible time delay in the audio.
Brogan and Buchholz say Philadelphia's ever-more-vibrant urban culture, along with lower real estate prices that make it attractive compared with New York and Washington, also figure into their pitch to potential recruits.
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