portland Portland, Oregon.

As part of its plan to expand in the Pacific Northwest, Los Angeles-based Buchalter announced Monday that it will merge with Portland-based Ater Wynne, adding 22 attorneys.

The merger is set to take effect Oct. 1. The addition of the group will bring Buchalter to approximately 300 attorneys across its nine office locations, which also include Los Angeles, Napa Valley, Orange County, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, Scottsdale and Seattle.

"Our clients in the Portland area and Puget Sound have legal needs throughout the [Pacific] Northwest and into California, nationally and globally," Ater Wynne managing partner Todd Mitchell said in an interview. "And we wanted a larger platform to serve our clients better and to be able to grow and stay with them."

According to Mitchell, Buchalter reached out to his firm about a potential merger as it sought to expand into the Pacific Northwest.

"Together, the combined firm intends to grow in this market, and in Seattle," Mitchell said. "This is a great market and Buchalter's platform, we think it's going to be very attractive for lateral attorneys in the Portland market, who want to have the ability to be part of a larger firm."

Mitchell will become the managing shareholder of Buchalter's Portland office and will spend "a significant amount of time" in the Seattle office as well. All of Ater Wynne's attorneys have joined the new Portland office, Mitchell said. Half of them are licensed to practice in Washington and will work closely with Buchalter's Seattle office.

He added, "Buchalter has a national reputation for banking, real estate and finance. And those are practices that we don't have here in our office in Portland. So we see opportunities to offer those services to our existing clients."

With the addition of Ater Wynne's attorneys in Portland, Buchalter will offer clients services across practice areas, including mergers and acquisitions, banking, real estate, health care, technology, global trade and commercial litigation, the firm said.

"We've always been a West Regional firm, and this Northwest market is really strong, it's growing, its vibrant," Buchalter president and CEO Adam Bass said. "The skill sets of our existing lawyers and lawyers who joined us now in the Northwest are so complimentary that it really has been a great addition for our existing client base."

Buchalter has been eagerly expanding its West Coast presence in recent years. The firm opened its Seattle office in 2018 in U.S. Bank Centre downtown, with existing Buchalter attorneys and a trio from Foster Pepper. According to Buchalter, the Seattle location, led by former Foster Pepper managing partner Jeffrey Frank, has grown to 12 lawyers.

Last November, Buchalter also opened a new office in San Diego, naming Tracy Warren, formerly a Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart partner, as the managing shareholder of the office.

"Hav[ing] a very strong regional footprint is right for us," Bass said.

Read More

Buchalter Expands California Reach With San Diego Office