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Amid Departures, Thelen Muses on Mergers
The Recorder
July 18, 2008
Amid a rash of recent departures, San Francisco-based Thelen Reid Brown Raysman & Steiner has notified staff and attorneys that the firm wants to pursue another merger, while saying that no particular deal is in the works.
Thelen announced the firm's interest in a new merger -- two years after the one that produced the current firm -- in an internal memo last week, as first reported on the Above the Law blog.
"The decision was made to pursue a merger, and we wanted to give [the firm] a quick update on that decision," Thelen spokesman Kevin Livingston said Thursday.
At the same time, the firm is weathering another major departure. A team of four partners led by Mark Weitzel, the head of Thelen's project development and finance practice, has given Thelen notice that they will be leaving the firm, Livingston confirmed. Weitzel represents Thelen mainstay Bechtel, as well as Calpine and other large energy companies and is among the most highly compensated lawyers in the firm, sources said. He'll be joined by project development and finance partners Thomas Glascock, Leslie Sherman and David Spielberg. None of the partners, all of whom work in the firm's S.F. office, would comment on the departure.
The group, which is still at Thelen, is planning to join Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, sources familiar with Thelen said. An Orrick spokesman would not confirm the move, saying, "We do not comment on rumors or speculation."
The departure of Weitzel's group follows months of departures at the firm. Thelen has lost about 50 attorneys -- including at least 20 partners and five practice heads -- since March, according to comparisons between archived copies of the firm's Web site. The 50 departures, which do not include the 26 associate layoffs that month, represents a 9 percent shrinkage in Thelen's pool of lawyers. The firm now has 475 attorneys.
Livingston said the departures are a natural consequence of the hookup between San Francisco's Thelen Reid & Priest and New York's Brown Raysman Millstein Felder & Steiner.
"We did a very large merger in 2006 and, as happens in almost all mergers, there is often attorney attrition, and that's both planned and unplanned," Livingston said.
Thelen's New York office, which was home to 200 lawyers in March, has been hardest hit in recent months. The office has seen 40 departures, including 14 partners -- one of whom was name partner Peter Brown.
Former partners and industry observers have said that the firm's Los Angeles office has also seen a number of departures in recent years. In 2006, the then-two-floor Los Angeles office hit a peak of about 60 lawyers, and around this time the firm decided to add a third floor, former partners said. Now the office is down to 36 attorneys.
San Francisco legal recruiter Avis Caravello said that, given Thelen's strong culture, the partnership will likely support a merger as a way to strengthen the firm.
"I think the partnership recognizes that this is a strategic initiative and wants it to succeed," she said.
