For law graduates and laid-off lawyers who are fretting over who will hire them, a measure of hope lies in smaller firms like the Royse Law Firm.

Roger Royse opened his five-attorney firm in 2006. Since then, he's added two lawyers and opened an office in Los Angeles. The Palo Alto, Calif., business lawyer may not be growing exponentially, but he does keep an open mind. He says he doesn't shun the green or the unemployed in interviews, and hopes to hire for next year. Legal Pad caught up with Royse this afternoon to see how the statewide expansion has been going.

• On venture capital and M&A work: Royse focuses on deals worth between $5 million and $25 million, and says the Bay Area is the center of the universe for deals. "Even VCs in L.A. are looking at deal flow in Silicon Valley."

• On "talent": Having discovered just how huge the entertainment industry is in Southern California, Royse is dipping a toe in those circles. Not that he's transforming himself into an entertainment lawyer.

Royse says the plan is to offer corporate and tax support to actors, producers and financiers. Already he's picked up Bill Dorfman, the dentist on Extreme Makeover, and Deidre Hall, who was on Days of Our Lives for more than 30 years. "It's such a natural fit for us to take our toolkit and apply it to the entertainment industry, because a lot of the concepts are the same," he says.

• Recruiting: Things are looking up in the OCI arena. Last year, Royse says he got "a big yawn" from Stanford students, but this fall, he says, his five slots filled right up. He also interviewed at the New York University School of Law's tax LLM program. "One thing that hasn't changed from a year ago -- the down economy and big firm woes have been a boon for us."

It's good to know the last year has been good for somebody ... .

This article originally appeared on Legal Pad, the blog for The Recorder's Web site, Cal Law.

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