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Managing Partner Snapshot

By Kari Santos | Aug. 2, 2014
News

Law Office Management

Aug. 2, 2014

Managing Partner Snapshot

Mickey Mayerson
Loeb & Loeb, Los Angeles

280 lawyers, 7 offices (1 in California) Deputy chairman for 3 years (33 years in practice, all with the firm)

On the firm's practice: Nationally recognized, multiservice law firm strategically focused in core industries.

"We're all dealing with the reality of what the legal business looks like post-2008 and a recognition that it's never going to look the way it did in 2008."

Greg Nitzkowski
Paul Hastings, Los Angeles

900 lawyers, 20 offices (5 in California)
Managing partner for 15 years (30 years with the firm)

On the firm's practice: "Doing the best work for the best clients worldwide."

"As an industry, we're in the midst of the beginning stages of a situation in which the quality of a law firm is going to be defined by its ability to innovate."

James C. Romo
Atkinson, Andelson, Loya, Ruud & Romo, Cerritos

143 lawyers, 8 offices (all in California)
Managing partner for 5 years (38 years in practice, 34 with the firm)

On the firm's practice: Multidisciplinary law practice representing public entities and private businesses.

Kathryn J. Fritz
Fenwick & West, San Francisco

353 lawyers, 4 offices (2 in California)
Managing partner for 8 years (29 years in practice, 24 with the firm)

On the firm's practice: Comprehensive legal services to groundbreaking technology and life sciences companies.

"Lawyers individually need to become more receptive to innovative ideas and more willing to take risks and experiment, because that's what companies do. They try things. And when those things don't work, they stop and try something else. I cannot think of another business entity out there that has had two primary position names for the last 200 years."

Johanna Calabria
Durie Tangri, San Francisco

20 lawyers, 1 office
Managing partner for 3 years (16 years in practice, 5 with the firm)

On the firm's practice: A litigation boutique with an emphasis on intellectual property.

"Most law firms start from the profit-maximization principle, which we do not. Once you do away with profit maximizing as your goal, you can do a lot of things."

Andrew G. Giacomini
Hanson Bridgett, San Francisco

150 lawyers, 4 offices (all in California)
Managing partner for 12 years (23 years in practice, all with the firm)

On the firm's practice: "Lawyers you'll like."

"We've decided we're not going to go national. Or international. Or galactic. We don't have an office on the moon. And we like that. ... Every single AmLaw 100 firm that is coming or has come to the Bay Area has called me. I'm always happy to take the meeting in case they need referrals."

Janice P. Brown
Brown Law Group, San Diego

7 lawyers, 2 offices (both in California)
Managing partner since founding the firm 11 years ago (30 years in practice)

On the firm's practice: Represents companies big and small in employment cases throughout California.

"If a brief is due May 15, we want it done May 5, and we calendar to hold to those dates because we have found that if you're not stressed, you do better work. You want stress to be related to the issue you're dealing with, not the lawyers and staff you work with."

Guy N. Halgren
Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton, San Diego

668 lawyers, 15 offices (7 in California)
Chairman of the executive committee for 13 years (30 years in practice, 28 with the firm)

On the firm's practice: Sheppard Mullin is a full-service Global 100 firm.

"There's going to be a limited number of firms that decide they're going to be everywhere, and there are going to be a lot of different sizes, down to the single-office small firms."

Steven J. Nataupsky
Knobbe, Martens, Olson & Bear, Irvine

260 lawyers, 7 offices (5 in California)

Managing partner for 9 years (23 years in practice, all with the firm)

On the firm's practice: Dedicated to the practice of intellectual property law since 1962.

"Clients, for the most part, want the best lawyers they can get and don't want a one-stop shop."

Richard Waxman
Wendel Rosen Black & Dean, Oakland

57 lawyers, 2 offices (both in California)

Managing partner for 6 months (30 years in practice, 25 with the firm)

On the firm's practice: Business and real estate transactional and litigation firm serving California.

"We get along, we try not to make this firm feel like a heavy, high-pressure firm. ... [O]ur firm's partners and other lawyers have a close relationship with clients. ... We feel a close connection with making Oakland a good place to be and to live."

Read the full article on managing partners: Is Change on the Horizon?.
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Kari Santos

Daily Journal Staff Writer

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