Axiom, the law firm that has grown to 230 attorneys on the belief that corporate clients want lower costs and lawyers want a life outside of work, is setting up an office in Chicago and may set its sights on Washington next.

The firm started recruiting attorneys and clients in Chicago in the past few months, ahead of the official opening of the fourth Axiom office next month, said Mark Harris, the firm's chief executive officer. The new office is in the same office building as major law firm Sidley Austin in downtown Chicago.

While Axiom recently unrolled an advertising campaign to recruit more lawyers for its offices in New York, the firm's biggest with 160 lawyers, and San Francisco, it has been quietly laying the foundations for the office in Chicago.

The city has become a magnet for national firms in the past few years and is home to several of the world's largest firms. Axiom also has a smaller London office that it opened late last year. It recently shelved a plan for moving into Boston.

Chicago is "about as robust as any of the major metropolitan markets that we're not in today," Harris said in explaining the firm's decision to reach into the Midwest. "It's sort of the capital of the legal industry."

LOWER RATES

The firm has a unique business model in that attorneys receive assignments through the firm and work from home or, more likely, in the offices of clients who contract for Axiom services. Axiom allows its lawyers to take those assignments that meet their needs, giving them more flexibility, and provides services to clients at rates in the range of the mid-$100s to low $200s per hour, much lower than most large law firms.

So far, Axiom has received 40 applications from Chicago attorneys and has vetted eight for positions on its waiting list, said Mehul Patel, the Axiom executive vice president in charge of setting up the Chicago office. Like other Axiom attorneys, most of the eight have experience at large law firms and have also worked in-house, he said.

"We've had a lot of momentum in just a short period of time," Patel said of the Chicago buildup.

In the two months since he's been setting up the new outpost, Patel has received some level of commitment from about 10 Chicago-based clients, at least two of which are major companies in the city and some of which are pre-existing clients, said Patel, who is also a lawyer. Some of the companies are interviewing Axiom lawyers for possible hiring, he said.

ABUNDANCE OF LEGAL WORK

Axiom, which offers general corporate, transactional, intellectual property, securities and employment services, among others, was attracted to Chicago because of the concentration of both Fortune 500 companies and large law firms, Harris said.

The presence of many large firms underscored the abundance of legal work in the city and suggested there will be attorney offspring from those firms who opt for the work-life balance proposition offered by Axiom, he said.

Axiom seeks attorneys who are passionate about interests outside the legal world and want to have time for those other pursuits. The average attorney at the firm receives an annual salary of $211,000, the firm said. Axiom would not provide a number for hours worked per year by the average attorney.

Axiom also is interested in hanging out its shingle in Washington and hopes to start exploring the possibility by the end of the year, said Will McKinnon, a nonattorney who co-leads the New York office with Harris and would head any Washington expansion effort. The region's government, biotechnology and technology industries offer attractive client prospects, he said.

The firm's next target market is under discussion.

"After Chicago and Washington, there's a good chance it could be international, but it's a lively debate" at headquarters, Harris said.

First reported in The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times