7 Partners Leave Locke Lord Bissell, Form New Chicago Insurance Firm
A seven-partner contingent has left Locke Lord Bissell & Liddell, including the chair of the recently merged 700-attorney firm’s insurance group, to form its own law practice.
Led by Joseph Hinkhouse, 44, the new Chicago firm, which will be known as Hinkhouse Williams Walsh, will focus on representing insurance companies in litigation—and apparently without the increase in billable rates that their former firm was planning, according to the Chicago Tribune.
Hinkhouse said one major reason for the departure was the pressure that the merged firm was putting on former Lord Bissell & Brook lawyers to increase their billable hourly rates by as much as 50 percent, the newspaper reports. And Jerry Clements, the chairman of his now-former firm, confirms that some practice areas there, including insurance, are “suffering from rate pressure issues.”
Says Clements: “Any time you do a combination as significant as the one we did, you’re unfortunately going to lose some people who don’t fit anymore.”
In addition to Hinkhouse, the other partners are: John Williams, 45, Pat Walsh, 43, Sarah Dearing, 32, Rich McDermott, 41, Laura McKay, 41 and Scott Ostericher, 38. The new firm also includes five associates.
