For most of the three decades that Sean O. Coffey, a partner with Burns & Levinson LLP, has been a lawyer in Rhode Island, it’s been a market well-suited to single-office, local firms.
“It’s historically been that way, in that there has long been a service industry base and there has always been a [now-shrinking] industrial business base here in Providence,” he said. “A lot of those closely held, local businesses require a good amount of legal help.”
Last year, however, one of the nation’s oldest law firms, Providence-based Tillinghast Licht LLP, closed its doors after 190 years. Six of the senior partners moved to Adler Pollock & Sheehan PC, a regional player that already had an office in the capital city, as well as in Boston and New Hampshire.
And this month two more regional firms – Robinson & Cole LLP and Pierce Atwood LLP – opened Providence offices, signaling what may be another wave of expansion in Rhode Island by regional law firms similar to what occurred in the 1980s and 1990s, said Coffey.
For a time, it seemed regional firms weren’t interested in the Providence market. “But then we saw a wave of them coming to Providence, maybe a couple of decades back, with Brown Rudnick, Nixon Peabody, another firm called Peabody & Arnold,” Coffey said. His firm is also regional, with seven local attorneys backed by an estimated 120 lawyers and “significant resources in Boston, which has been a very successful vehicle in this market.”
New arrivals slowed after that first wave, until the recent openings, which include the hiring of local attorneys as partners in charge of both offices.
Robinson & Cole, a Hartford-based firm with eight other offices and about 250 lawyers, had been thinking about opening in the Providence market for about two years. The firm has hired Patricia J. Igoe and Peter V. Lacouture, both of whom had practiced with Nixon Peabody’s Providence office for more than a decade.
Pierce Atwood, the Portland, Maine-based firm that also opened in Providence, hired Brooks R. Magratten, who had been an attorney with Providence’s Vetter & White LLP office for 22 years. The firm’s new partner, who had not worked for a regional firm before, said such firms are slowly working their way back into Rhode Island.
“The litigation market here is small, but there aren’t that many regional firms in Providence yet,” Magratten said. “I think [being regional] gives you an advantage from a number of perspectives. Today clients are interested in hiring law firms that can represent them regionally, as opposed to just in one market.”
Darrow Everett LLP Managing Partner Zachary G. Darrow said his three-year-old firm took those client needs into consideration when it hung a shingle in both Boston and Providence. And Darrow said the two-office system seems to be working, with revenue growing despite the economic drop of the last year.
He said there are likely many factors why a semi-regional firm like his would buck the recession trend, but he singled out Darrow Everett’s ability to attract Providence-based clients who also operate in Massachusetts.
“Despite the local economy’s smaller size, when compared to Boston, we still don’t think that the ratio [of lawyers to clients] is the same,” Darrow said. “We think that there’s still a good market share to be had at the higher-end, more sophisticated business-transaction base.”
Hinckley Allen & Snyder LLP Managing Partner Gerard R. Goulet, who has practiced in Rhode Island since 1981, added that the “shuffle” in the Rhode Island market has opened up some opportunity for regional players. Besides Tillinghast Licht LLP’s shutdown, both Brown Rudnick LLP and Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge LLP have had local layoffs.
“Law is not recession-proof,” he said, adding, “I don’t think I’ve seen it quite to this extent. … We had dips in the early ’80s, dips in the early ’90s, we had the 2000 dip. But none of those were like this one.”
But, Goulet said, most regional firms with diverse practice areas and the ability to compete in all geographic markets – like his firm – are still doing well and growing, he said.
“A regional firm, in order to be credible … probably has to have a foothold in each of the significant state players,” he said. “I would count Rhode Island as one of those key players. … If you’re doing business in Massachusetts and Connecticut, there’s no reason you shouldn’t be in Rhode Island.”
Coffey, who serves on Burns & Levinson’s internal committee for regional strategy, agreed. He said, “For any of the firms that are pursuing a regional Boston-New York strategy, I think Providence is probably a must.”
But breaking into the Rhode Island legal market can be tough for lawyers and firms that aren’t established here. Rhode Island Bar Association Communications Director Frederick D. Massie said the small size of the Providence law community creates a more “fraternal” atmosphere.
“It tends to be a much more fraternal market, in terms of the fact that it’s a smaller, tighter community here,” he said. “People tend to know each other quite well.”
Speaking from Hartford, Robinson & Cole Managing Partner John B. Lynch Jr. said the firm chose Lacouture and Igoe because of their experience and established client bases in Rhode Island. The firm has eight offices in four other states – Connecticut, New York, Massachusetts and Florida – and at least some of its success can be attributed to hiring local partners when opening a new office, Lynch said.
In Providence, that was particularly true, he added. “It helps you network in and contribute to the community in ways that are much more difficult if you just transport somebody from your Boston office.”
And clients had been telling Lynch for years that Robinson & Cole should open a Rhode Island office. Many of the firm’s clients were already doing business in the Ocean State, he said.
Lacouture said he and Igoe made the transition from Nixon Peabody to Robinson & Cole over just a weekend, leaving on a Friday and starting at the new office on a Monday. But both had almost full client loads on that first day.
Coffey, the longtime Rhode Island attorney, said now might one of the most difficult times to drum up new business. With credit markets “essentially frozen” for clients, the legal community is also struggling. Still, he said, regional firms with lower overhead costs than single-office competitors might be able to entice new clients and more experienced lawyers, such as Robinson & Cole and Pierce Atwood have.
“I suppose anyone can make a bold move at the absolute perfect time,” Coffey said. “It takes some foresight to make a bold move when things are as difficult as they are now.” •
