Holland & Knight gets new LA office by absorbing real estate law firm

A check out of the skyline of downtown Los Angeles, California, U.S., March 22, 2022. REUTERS/Mike Blake

(Reuters) – Holland & Knight stated Thursday it has included 17 attorneys from small actual estate law company Pircher, Nichols & Meeks, a shift that will give the 1,700-law firm organization its next Los Angeles business.

Joseph Guay, chief of Holland & Knight’s genuine estate segment, confirmed that Pircher will be winding down operations with the lawyer exits. But he reported the advancement should really be characterised as a group attorney seek the services of instead than a merger of two companies.

Tampa-started Holland & Knight, which blended last summer months with Dallas-dependent Thompson & Knight, will take around Pircher’s lease in Century Town, a small business district in Los Angeles. Holland & Knight also has an business in downtown Los Angeles, and two others in California.

It can be been a occupied previous 7 days for legislation agency combos. Davis Wright Tremaine explained June 10 it would take up 44-lawyer financial services regulation agency McGonigle, and Fennemore Craig mentioned Tuesday it would mix with 56-law firm company Wendel Rosen.

The staff leaving the virtually 40-year-aged Pircher for Holland & Knight consists of eight associates.

John Irons, who was previously on Pircher’s executive committee, stated his prior business had a slender concentration on actual estate transactions. He said Pircher has understood it could advantage from joining a more substantial firm with complementary practices these as environmental and land use, zoning and construction.

Pircher has missing attorneys in modern decades, such as a 13-lawyer Chicago group to big firm White & Scenario in 2018. The agency issued a assertion at the time that its Los Angeles companions “declined this overture” to merge with White & Situation and selected to “keep on being a competitive boutique company.”

Ariel Robinson, a former Pircher law firm who is now executive husband or wife of Holland & Knight’s new Century Metropolis office, mentioned Holland & Knight is a “considerably improved match.”

The COVID-19 pandemic also “exposes some areas of want” and will “open up people’s eyes to what you can do on a bigger system,” Robinson said.

Holland & Knight says its real estate section has about 300 attorneys nationally. Guay, the department leader, reported the follow experienced its “ideal year ever” in 2021. With uncertainty forward in the industry with soaring fascination costs and inflation, the new crew coming in can aid as real estate clientele could have to “pivot,” he explained.

Go through more:

Holland & Knight, Thompson & Knight cement Aug. 1 merger ideas

Our Expectations: The Thomson Reuters Rely on Ideas.