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Tenn.'s Waller Lansden Retreats From Los Angeles
The National Law Journal
September 11, 2009
Waller Lansden Dortch & Davis quietly closed its Los Angeles office recently as part of a strategic move, according to John Tishler, chairman of the Nashville, Tenn.-based law firm.
Waller Lansden opened the office in 2003. The attorneys there, who included four partners and a small number of associates, focused on litigation, he said.
"I think there was, at that time, hope that we could attract other folks to the firm out there who would have a health care practice that would complement what they were doing, and that just never happened," Tishler said. "We're primarily known as a health care firm. And their areas of business tended to be in litigation. So it was not strategically a fit for either one of us."
The firm decided earlier this year to close the Los Angeles office. The attorneys left about a month ago, he said.
Three partners in that office -- Raymond E. Hane III, John E. McOsker and Cheryl L. Johnson-Hartwell -- now are partners at Burke, Williams & Sorensen in Los Angeles. Another lawyer, Stephen K. Lubega, is of counsel at Burke Williams.
A fourth partner, E. Lee Horton, is now senior counsel at Dykema Gossett in Los Angeles.
Johnson-Hartwell referred calls to Hane and McOsker, who did not reply to a request for comment. None of the other departing attorneys returned calls for comment.
Johnson-Hartwell, Hane and Lubega are labor and employment attorneys and McOsker specializes in environmental law.
Waller Lansden, with fewer than 200 attorneys, has a primary office in Nashville, with a small outpost in Birmingham, Ala.
