Dykema Gossett‘s announcement Monday that it will open an office in Charlotte, North Carolina, marked one of the first votes of confidence for the local legal market since 2008, when the financial meltdown kicked off a period of office closings and contractions in the city.

Dykema announced Monday that it has hired financial-services regulatory specialist Donald Lampe from Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice to open what is the Detroit-based firm’s eleventh office and its first in the Southeast.