Law Firms
6 Schwartz Cooper Refugees Pass Up Dykema, Choose Ungaretti
Posted Jul 8, 2008, 10:52 am CST
By Molly McDonough
Not everyone at the soon-to-be shuttered Schwartz Cooper believes that bigger is better.
Indeed, a group of six from the firm's intellectual property law group have decided to shift to Chicago's venerable Ungaretti & Harris rather than join their colleagues going to Detroit-based Dykema.
"A merger was not what we wanted at this time," the Chicago Tribune quotes partner Roger Stein, 50, as saying. "We're used to practicing in a more entrepreneurial culture with less bureaucracy."
In addition to Stein, partners Peter Klobuchar, 45, Richard Himelhoch, 44, and Stanton Miller, 64. Two others, Bryan Sugar, 33, and Susan Meyer, 44, will join as counsel, the Tribune reports.
Rather than follow the M&A trend, Ungaretti is known and wants to be known, at least in the profession, for remaining an autonomous mid-sized firm.
The Tribune recalled a recruitment ad that Ungaretti placed in Chicago Lawyer magazine that "poked fun at the merger frenzy by making up a medical-sounding condition called 'mergeritis.'"