Denver-based Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck announced this week that it will open a new office in Reno, Nev. In some respects, the news is atypical. The number of law firm office openings has slowed significantly along with the economy, particularly for new domestic locations.

In other ways, Brownstein is representative of the relatively small number of firms still expanding in the United States right now: midsize and based outside of major financial centers such as New York and Chicago.