Bingham McCutchen said Friday it will downsize its Walnut Creek, Calif., office, moving 19 out of 20 lawyers who worked there to San Francisco, and laying off half the staff.

The firm plans to not renew the office's lease, which expires Oct. 31, according to managing partner Geoffrey Robinson. The firm then hopes to move to a smaller space in the East Bay suburb.

Seven staff will be laid off on Feb. 6, while seven other staff will be moved to San Francisco. The attorneys will begin moving to the firm's newly renovated space near San Francisco's Embarcadero on March 2.

The firm's planned Walnut Creek outpost will be home to one full-time attorney, of counsel Marie Cooper, and will have space for four or five personal offices and three or four conference rooms, Robinson said. While attorneys will have their principal base of operations in San Francisco, most will end up working out of both offices, Robinson said.

"We believe that the move will enable us to take advantage of synergies with other practice groups such as environmental and transactional real estate and construction litigation," Robinson said.

"The unfortunate by-product of this is that we have staff for whom there are duplicative people in San Francisco, and we just don't have positions for them," he continued. "All in all, we feel it's the right move given the economic uncertainty we face in the coming year."

The firm wants to maintain a presence in Walnut Creek because of its central location among the counties surrounding the Bay Area and the geographic diversity of its clients. The firm needs conference space in the area for large meetings of engineers, and city and county personnel that are often involved with the firm's cases.

Boston-based Bingham Dana and Oakland, Calif.-based McCutchen, Doyle, Brown & Enersen merged in 2002. While the firm cited economic uncertainty for 2009, this week it reported 2008 results that showed slight growth in a year of economic turmoil. Bingham reported its revenue grew 3.2 percent in 2008, totalling $767 million, while profits per partner grew 6.4 percent to $1.42 million.

Chairman Jay Zimmerman said the firm "worked hard" to realize those numbers, planning ahead in 2007 as more signs emerged of a worsening economy. Revenue per lawyer grew 5.5 percent to $950,000, while net profit rose 6.7 percent to $960,000. The firm's head count dipped 2.2 percent in 2008. The reduction allowed lawyers to maintain a high level of work, Zimmerman said.

Bingham hired several significant laterals in the second half of the year, beefing up its securities, antitrust and restructuring practices. The additions include securities lawyer Geoffrey Aronow, former director of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and most recently the managing partner of Heller Ehrman's Washington, D.C., office, as well as restructuring partner Jeffrey Sabin from Schulte Roth & Zabel. The firm also brought on three antitrust partners from Clifford Chance in November.

The additions, Zimmerman told Recorder affiliate the Am Law Daily, position the firm for another strong year in 2009.

"Over the years, we have paid some costs of diversification in building and maintaining securities, restructuring and litigation practices when they were not as busy," Zimmerman told the blog. "But we are showing strong, steady results."

Bingham reported positive revenue and profit growth in 2008, but the firm joins a growing list of Am Law 200 firms that have laid off staff or lawyers in recent months.

Layoffs, reduced bonuses and salary freezes have been seen throughout the legal profession in recent months. In the San Francisco Bay Area, Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe cut 40 lawyers in November, and Gunderson Dettmer Stough Villeneuve Franklin & Hachigian laid off half of its first-year class in December.

Citing an uncertain economy, Cooley Godward Kronish said on Wednesday that it would lay off 52 lawyers and 62 staff. The 725-lawyer firm cut associates, including some who had just started this fall, and three special counsel. Practice areas most affected by the layoffs are those being hardest hit in the economic downturn: corporate, transactional and public securities, the firm said.

Pillsbury downsized its staff and lawyers in 2008, but never disclosed exactly how many. The firm cut costs dramatically, and Chairman James Rishwain Jr. said some departures were voluntary, some were performance-based and some were based on excess capacity. The number of lawyers at the firm dipped 2 percent to 716.

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