At Ballard Spahr, the election of the first non-Pennsylvania-based chair this year signified the growth of the Philadelphia-based firm’s business on a national scale.

With 14 months remaining in the transition to new leadership, a slate of hand-picked C-level appointments by Minneapolis-based chair-elect Pete Michaud is also signifying an evolution in the firm’s leadership structure to manage this expansion, one that unifies Ballard’s administrative back-bone with new methods of delivering legal services, leaders said in interviews this month.