At Am Law 100 firm Ballard Spahr, office managing partners have long recognized the need for someone of their rank to head the office in the firm’s native Philadelphia. That city’s office managing partner position had been unoccupied for the past decade because the firmwide management team, also based in the city, had taken on many of its duties, says firm chairman Mark Stewart.

But at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in last March, Stewart says managing partners at other Ballard Spahr offices were “clamoring” to have a counterpart in that city. It became clear they needed a Philadelphia-based managing partner to work with them on developing best practices for responding to the pandemic and the prolonged economic challenges it presented.