For the past few years, Pittsburgh-based Eckert Seamans Cherin & Mellott has been looking east toward Philadelphia, growing that office to more than 60 attorneys.

Now, the firm is looking south to Washington, D.C., and northeast to Boston, where it will focus on growing those offices through lateral additions, its chief executive officer, Timothy Ryan, said.

The latest effort to further that goal comes from Washington, where Eckert Seamans will pick up five labor and employment attorneys from Ballard Spahr Andrews & Ingersoll's office there.

The group, which will officially make the move May 29, is made up of partners F. Joseph Nealon, Jeffrey W. Larroca and Constantinos G. Panagopoulos, who will join Eckert Seamans as members, and associates Jennifer E. Lattimore and William D. Ledoux Jr., who will maintain their same titles.

Their addition will bring Eckert Seamans' Washington office to 17 attorneys and will add depth to an existing labor and employment practice and join existing commercial litigation and international aviation practices.

Nealon managed Ballard Spahr's Washington, D.C., litigation section for the past decade and focuses his practice on both trial and appellate work in the labor and employment and insurance areas.

"We believe that there will continue to be increased demand for labor and employment and litigation counsel both nationally as well as in our nation's capital," he said in a statement. "At the same time, our clients are under continued pressure to control costs. Eckert Seamans, with its client-focused business model and attention to cost control, gives us access to extensive resources, while enabling us to provide cost-effective delivery of our services to our clients."

Ryan said that while the firm tends to grow according to a strategic plan, it has brought on 38 laterals so far this year through a combination of good timing and an environment in which it can offer parallel compensation, but a more flexible rate structure. He said that was part of the reason this labor and employment group made the move to Eckert Seamans.

Ballard Spahr Chairman Arthur Makadon said the group of litigators Nealon led consisted mainly of those that are leaving with him for Eckert Seamans. Aside from one other litigator, Ballard Spahr's Washington office is concentrated in the areas of real estate, public finance, energy, government relations, business and finance, infrastructure and tax practices.

Makadon has said recently that he would love to see his 45-attorney Washington office grow to 150, but said it is difficult to find top quality attorneys who are interested in moving under current market conditions.

This is the second Washington-based group Ballard Spahr has seen defect to another firm this year. In January, trademark prosecution and enforcement attorney Brian Winterfeldt led a seven-attorney group to the Washington, D.C., office of Steptoe & Johnson.

In an interview Tuesday, Makadon said the firm is trying to grow different practice areas in Washington from those represented by the departing groups. He said the firm is interested in regulatory and business practices in D.C.

Dan Binstock, managing director of BCG Attorney Search in Washington, said there is an "extremely strong demand" in the city for lateral partners with self-sustaining practices, usually for one of two reasons. Either firms are looking for "saviors" to come in and help a hurting practice or they are looking to capitalize on opportunities as some partners look to leave firms that are hurting.

"It is challenging because usually the people that the smaller firms want are people that are not necessarily looking at those types of firms," Binstock said. "Everyone's trying to buy up."

Firms that do the best, he said, are those that have a targeted approach rather than just looking for a broader presence in Washington. Firms that say they want partners with large books of business no matter the practice area "reek of desperation," he said.

ECKERT'S GROWTH STRATEGY

Despite an economy in which many large firms are shedding attorneys, Eckert Seamans has been on a bit of a growth spurt with many of the nearly 40 laterals coming to the firm in the form of small groups.

In January 2009, the firm announced the opening of an office in Charleston, W.Va., through the addition of all 13 attorneys from Hendrickson & Long. In April, Eckert Seamans picked up 12 of the 13 attorneys in disbanding Wolf Block's Harrisburg, Pa., office. The firm has also been adding attorneys in Boston, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.

Eckert Seamans hasn't been entirely unaffected by the economy. While there have been no layoffs among its staff of more than 300 attorneys, the firm did file a WARN Act notice that it could lay off by July 1 more than 100 of its 200 contract attorneys from its document coding center in Pittsburgh. Ryan said a few weeks ago that those layoffs are still only a theoretical possibility. He said if a big client matter comes to the firm in the next two months, the chance for layoffs might become even more remote.