Bob Bodian, managing partner of Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky & Popeo, didn’t mince his words when asked why he thought it would be a good idea to expand in San Francisco.
“We have over 400 clients in San Francisco,” he said. “We need a bigger presence.”
The firm expanded its San Francisco office this week, adding Marc Axelbaum, who led Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw’s corporate investigations and commercial defense practice in Northern California and led the firm’s litigation – trust, probate and high net worth practice – and Daniel Cody, a health partner of Jones Day.
Bodian said the firm currently employs about 20 lawyers, but he expects that number to double over the next two years to keep up with demand. The main “pillars” of the company’s practice, including Life sciences, private equity, healthcare and litigation “all have done really well and we’re looking to expand those capabilities in San Francisco,” Bodian added.
As the firm grows in San Francisco, it has appointed a new office director: Steve Osborn, a Bay Area-based transactions attorney.
The company has had an office in San Francisco since 2012, Bodian said, and the timing of its expansion isn’t set in stone, but things have worked out in a way that encourages the company to focus on growth there.
“The timing is not magic. It could have been five years ago. But we now have more equity to work with,” he said. “We made a big investment. We even did something we’ve never done before: we hired a recruiter.”
The San Francisco office growth follows the company’s founding in Toronto earlier this year and following another record fiscal year in 2022. Ranked 75th on the Am Law 100, Mintz’s revenue grew 5% last year to $617 million. Dollars, while the… The company’s average earnings per equity partner increased by 2.9% to reach $2.16 million.
Axelbaum is a litigator with a broad professional base, the law firm said. He works with clients in criminal, civil, probate and internal investigations related to the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Department of Justice and other regulatory investigative agencies.
He was at Pillsbury for over 18 years before joining Mintz.
Meanwhile, Cody had been with Jones Day for a little less than seven years. Prior to that, he worked at Reed Smith for nearly two decades. Cody represents a variety of healthcare stakeholders including hospitals, physicians, digital healthcare companies and comprehensive healthcare systems.
In a statement, Bodian said that Cody is “a recognized leader in healthcare fraud and abuse and regulatory matters” and that he has “a keen understanding of the evolving business and legal challenges affecting healthcare providers, suppliers and Life.” -Science companies impact.” ”
He added that Axelbaum’s “expertise adds to our highly respected commercial practice as well as our capabilities in conducting trust and probate litigation.”
When asked about the company’s growth, Bodian said the partnership seeks to strike a balance between scaling to gain market power and maintaining corporate culture, two concepts that can sometimes cause controversy.
“There’s kind of a sliding scale of size and culture around the law firm environment,” he said. “I don’t know that growth significantly improves the culture or the level of cooperation between partners. But there is market power in being bigger. The largest and most profitable companies have more market power. You can take more risks or use large groups of career changers.”
He said his goal is to have a company that “can pay people appropriately while also making it a place where people want to work and enjoy working.”
