One thing’s certain about Orange County’s legal industry: it’s bounced back from the early days of the pandemic that limited trials.
“Law practice in OC is certainly booming and has returned to its pre-COVID vitality,” said Samantha Dorey, a founding partner of Irvine-based Everett Dorey LLP.
Her civil litigation firm in the past year grew from 24 lawyers to 30 today, helping it move up 13 spots to No. 35 on the Business Journal’s annual list of OC’s top law firms.
The list, which ranks firms by the number of attorneys they have in the county, includes 94 firms with at least 10 local attorneys.
Those 94 firms count 2,996 OC lawyers, up 15 attorneys from a year ago.
As of March 2020, near the outset of the pandemic, the top 91 legal firms here counted 2,785 OC lawyers. Since then, the ranks of lawyer employment have risen almost 8%.
Work Carries On
While courthouses practically closed during COVID, litigation never stopped, Dorey told the Business Journal last week.
“With the backlog of cases finally making it to trial, there is a need more than ever for reliable trial attorneys, which has fueled our growth,” Dorey said.
“Litigation will continue to be a growth area this year and next,” she said. “We continue to see high stakes complex matters involving public entities, a surge in employment law and new and emerging areas in environmental law.
“With clients calling us at the 11th hour looking for capable trial attorneys for catastrophic cases, our trial work will continue to be a healthy part of our practice.”
Similar trends were seen at the Irvine office of Michelman & Robinson LLP, whose firm handles commercial, class action and cross-border litigation, among other areas.
“Trials seem to be starting up again, and jury trials in person appear to be on the rise,” said Mona Hanna, the OC managing partner of Michelman & Robinson’s local office, which counts 14 local lawyers.
She’s also the firm’s National Complex & Class Action Trial Chair.
Hanna cited a “more aggressive posture” in business disputes, “leading to more trials.”
Partner Counts Down
Companywide, firms on this week’s law firms list boosted their lawyer counts by 2.8% to 43,653, spread out among 1,334 offices.
One area of limited growth: the number of OC partners on the list fell 0.5% last year, to 1,357. That’s still up 7% from 2020 levels.
The 94 firms on this year’s list also reported their OC employee count grew 2.2% over the past year to 5,708.
Top Slots
Knobbe Martens with 141 OC lawyers and Rutan & Tucker LLP with 135 retained the top two slots on the list, while their local attorney levels stayed generally unchanged over the past year.
“We’re very happy with the size of our firm, and I don’t anticipate any significant growth in headcount this year. At our current size, we are ideally positioned to continue providing exceptional service to our clients,” Steven Nataupsky, Knobbe Martens’ managing partner, told the Business Journal.
“The last several years have been among the busiest ever for the firm—we’ve actually eclipsed pre-pandemic levels of activity,” he added.
“2024 is off to a great start for us as well, and while there remains uncertainty in the market, I’m optimistic looking towards the rest of the year. We’re fortunate to have a tremendous base of clients in Orange County and across the country and globe who continually turn to us for their most critical IP work.”
Knobbe Martens has made national headlines for its work representing Irvine’s Masimo Corp. (Nasdaq: MASI) in the device maker’s varied trade secret cases against Apple Inc. (Nasdqq: AAPL).
Notables
Los Angeles-headquartered Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP ranked third on the list with 99 lawyers locally, followed by Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP’s Costa Mesa office in fourth place with 92 while Newport Beach-based Bremer, Whyte, Brown & O’Meara LLP was fifth with 88.
No. 6 Latham & Watkins LLP, which has 87 attorneys at its Costa Mesa office, is the biggest firm companywide on the list, reporting 3,727 attorneys altogether.
A growing firm on the list is Mortenson, Taggart Adams LLP in Irvine, which has grown from 14 lawyers last year to 20 today.
“Growth in our attorney and staff numbers has been driven largely by significant increases in client demand for our services. We anticipate adding three more attorneys to our Orange County office by the end of the summer of 2024, including two recent UCI law graduates.
And we anticipate additional growth in our Bay Area office,” Managing Partner Michael Mortenson said.
—With assistance from OCBJ Research Director Raymond Dinh
