Wall Street calls it value investing — buying something that’s underpriced relative to its long-term value. The legal community could label it the Bingham McCutchen strategy. Most recently, the Boston-based firm has focused its acquisitive tendencies on Washington. Little more than three years after snapping up one wounded Washington midlister, Bingham McCutchen is closing the deal on another troubled office. In early 2006, it was midsized Swidler Berlin, then hemorrhaging lawyers, that Bingham McCutchen Chairman Jay Zimmerman pulled into the fold. Now it’s McKee Nelson, which has seen profits stall, that has agreed to become a part of Bingham.
Zimmerman said he wants to build up the firm’s presence in Washington. If the Swidler merger is any indication, McKee Nelson’s lawyers will find themselves blended right in by the time the changeover is completed this fall. “They’re like a friendly Borg,” said Leonard Miller, a founding partner of Swidler Berlin who now heads the Washington office of New York’s Carter Ledyard & Milburn. “One day you’re part of one firm, and then, boom, the next day you’re assimilated.”
