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Year of Departing Partners for Bingham McCutchen
Management style, post-merger problems cited in many exits
The National Law Journal
May 28, 2008
At least 16 partners have parted ways with Bingham McCutchen this year, including several practice leaders and firm managers.
Recent West Coast departures follow several partner exits from San Francisco and other offices last year, and defections are also ramping up on the East Coast.
Also, the firm confirmed last week that it laid off a total of 17 staff in two California offices -- 12 in San Francisco and five in Silicon Valley.
Some former partners say they've simply seized a better opportunity, but many cite poor integration of past mergers, a top-down management style stemming from Chairman Jay Zimmerman and the firm's lack of willingness to let newer partners build a practice with initially lower-margin clients.
In Boston, four Bingham partners have moved to other firms since March, including corporate attorney Joseph J. Basile to Weil, Gotshal & Manges; intellectual property attorney Victor H. Polk Jr. to Greenberg Traurig; litigator James S. Rollins to WolfBlock; and litigator and former U.S. Attorney Donald K. Stern to Cooley Godward Kronish.
In New York, the former co-chair of Bingham's health care industry group, Christine White, jumped to Washington-based Crowell & Moring in January.
Farther down the coast, former Swidler Berlin stalwarts who merged into Bingham in 2006 moved to other firms' Washington offices this year. Leonard Miller, a Swidler Berlin founding partner, jumped to New York-based Carter Ledyard & Milburn, and former intellectual property partner Ed Pennington helped open the Washington office of Boston's Hanify & King and brought three other Bingham McCutchen attorneys.
'COMPETITIVE DISADVANTAGE'
Several former partners are incensed by what they describe as Zimmerman's dictatorial style and the firm's expectation that partners would "rubber stamp" decisions made by the firm committee of senior firm management.
Zimmerman denied that partners are pressured to vote with him, or the firm committee, and said the firm operates "pragmatically" by building consensus among concentric circles of different groups in the firm depending on the issue.
"You can't confuse consensus with unanimity," Zimmerman said. "When you have a large organization, if you can't react quickly, you are at a tremendous competitive disadvantage." Zimmerman also believes in a strong cadre of professional staffers, who handle such tasks as leasing negotiation and design issues related to the firm's move to a new 300,000-square-foot space in Boston slated for this month.
"We're a firm that believes let the lawyers focus on the practice of law and have a very strong administrative staff," Zimmerman said. "It's the way of large firms and it's a huge competitive advantage."
Yet even former partners who praise Zimmerman's accomplishments claim that partners are treated more like workers than owners.
Noted bankruptcy lawyer Evan D. Flaschen, whose move to the New York office of Houston's Bracewell & Giuliani in March 2007 was followed by three Bingham partners he worked with closely, said Zimmerman has done an effective job of building the firm and increasing efficiency and profitability, but "it's not a model that suits everyone."
"For many people the gains exceed the losses; for me that was not the case," Flaschen said. "You lose the sense of shared enterprise. It feels more like you are working for the company."
PRO-CENTRALIZATION
Bingham's centralization was a positive change, argued Christopher Hockett, the former head of Bingham's litigation practice and a firm committee member. Hockett was a lawyer at McCutchen, Doyle, Brown & Enersen in San Francisco before it merged with Boston's Bingham Dana in 2002.
"The old McCutchen used to debate endlessly down to who was going to be the bagel supplier for the next six months," Hockett said. "It doesn't work in a large firm setting. With the geographic benefits, you sacrifice some of the participation in firm decision making." Hockett, who left in February for the Menlo Park, Calif., office of New York's Davis Polk & Wardwell, said he had a unique opportunity to spearhead the West Coast commercial litigation practice for a firm that rarely hires laterally.
Another practice leader, Robert Ebe, the former West Coast head of Bingham's distribution and franchise group, moved to Nixon Peabody's San Francisco office.
Also on the West Coast, a couple of groups or closely aligned lawyers made moves: three litigation partners jumped to the San Francisco office of Washington's Arnold & Porter: Monty Agarwa, Angel Garganta and Trenton Norris and eight land use and real estate lawyers moved to the Orange County, Calif., office of Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton of Los Angeles, including former Bingham partners Geoffrey K. Willis and Deborah M. Rosenthal.
Two lawyers also moved in-house: James Fowler, the former co-chairman of Bingham's military base reuse and privatization practice went to Apple Inc., and former Silicon Valley managing partner and co-head of Bingham's intellectual property practice Mary Huser jumped to eBay Inc.
