Crowell & Moring Adds 29 Folger Levin Litigators
Crowell & Moring is picking up 29 litigators from Folger Levin & Kahn, all but one of them from San Francisco.
Fifteen other lawyers will remain in a renamed law firm, Folger Levin, according to a Crowell and Moring press release. Name partner Michael Kahn is joining Crowell, which voted unanimously to acquire the group on Friday, the Recorder reports. The lawyers remaining at Folger Levin practice primarily in estate planning and business law.
Crowell chairman Kent Gardiner told the Recorder that the deal is the biggest acquisition the 450-lawyer Crowell has made in its effort to build a national litigation practice. Crowell initiated talks in the spring. “I wouldn’t say we weren’t interested in [the business lawyers],” Gardiner said, but “we went into it principally from the litigation context.”
The deal gives Crowell & Moring an instant litigation presence in San Francisco, according to the story. The firm opened a Los Angeles office last year when it acquired a group of lawyers from Lightfoot Vandevelde Sadowsky Crouchley Rutherford & Levine.
Kahn, who will be a senior counsel at Crowell, told the Recorder that Folger had been turning down work because it called for lawyers outside its reach. “I’ve spent a lot of my time in the last 15 years helping clients find lawyers in other cities,” he said.
The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times also has a story.
Prior coverage:
ABAJournal.com: “Is Folger Levin in Merger Talks with Crowell & Moring?”
Updated at 11 a.m. to include Crowell & Moring press release and correct number of lawyers at the reformed Folger Levin.
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