Lathrop & Gage to Open Calif. Office By Merging With Spillane Trial Boutique
A growing 300-attorney law firm located largely in the Midwest is establishing a foothold on the West Coast by combining with a Los Angeles trial and intellectual property boutique.
The merger of Lathrop & Gage with the seven-lawyer Spillane Shaeffer Aronoff Bandlow trial boutique on Jan. 1, 2009 will not only give Lathrop a California presence but should create a significant synergy between the two firms’ practices.
“Lathrop has had a very strong, hard intellectual property type of practice, and the copyright and trademark stuff gets developed out of the entertainment industry,” the Spillane firm’s managing partner, John Shaeffer, tells Los Angeles Business. “We’ve been very successful in developing relationships with motion picture studios and video games.”
Meanwhile, although “opening a Los Angeles office gives us a true national reach, … the real impetus for the move is the opportunity to work even more closely with an incredibly talented group of people,” says Joel Voran, Lathrop’s CEO, in a press release. “John and his team are exceptional lawyers, and clients seek them out, as we did, because they are smart, dedicated and pragmatic—real strategic trial lawyers. They are at the top of their game, entrepreneurial, and great additions to our firm.”
For the Spillane firm, having the extra support provided by being a part of a bigger law firm means its lawyers can take on large litigation matters, Schaeffer explains to Los Angeles Business. “It was getting to the point where I was hearing from clients that, because of our size, we weren’t going to be considered for the bigger litigation cases.”
Lathrop & Gage, which was founded in Kansas City, Mo., in 1873 as Lathrop and Smith, now has 10 offices in Colorado, Kansas, Missouri and New York City.
