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Another prominent Sarasota law firm has become the gateway for an out of state practice to enter Florida.
First it was Abel Band Chartered, the once-powerful firm that agreed last summer to become part of a larger Ohio-based practice with a minimal presence in the Sunshine State.
Now the Ruden McClosky name, in Sarasota and St. Petersburg at least, will go the way of Abel Band. The Fort Lauderdale-based firm, which just recently celebrated its 50th anniversary, is consolidating its Gulf Coast practice into its 25-lawyer Tampa office. The firm will be left with about 130 lawyers in nine Florida offices.
In the process, about 20 Ruden McClosky attorneys — and their clients — from St. Petersburg and Sarasota will become part of Adams and Reese, a firm with offices in 11 Southeast markets, including Houston, Memphis, New Orleans and Jackson, Miss. Adams and Reese's specialties range from insurance defense to filing product class action lawsuits to representing oil and gas industry clients.
Like Abel Band, Ruden McClosky had some star-power in local legal circles. The Sarasota office roster, for example, includes Nicholas Gladding, considered to be one of the leading “green” construction attorneys in the state. Gov. Charlie Crist recently reappointed Gladding to a second term as a commissioner of the Florida Energy and Climate Commission.
The stated strategy from Ruden McClosky is one of shrink now to grow later. “Ruden McClosky's Gulf Coast consolidation is consistent with our business strategy: streamlining firm-wide operations while simultaneously pursuing new avenues for growth throughout Florida,” Ruden McClosky's managing partner Carl Schuster says in a news release. The message from Adams and Reese, meanwhile, is that now is the best time to get into Florida, before an economic recovery makes it a more crowded marketplace.
“We were tickled when this group of lawyers came to us,” Adams and Reese managing partner Chuck Adams tells Coffee Talk.
Adams says his firm sought a Florida practice it could merge with or takeover in 2007, but it backed off as the economy worsened. The goal then, as it is now, says Adams, is to increase the firm's reach and ability to do more for its clients, which includes a handful with business interests in the Panhandle.
Adams also says the timing of the expansion, coming as the Florida legislature readies itself for a fight on offshore drilling, is purely coincidental — even though Adams and Reese has several oil and gas industry clients. With the addition of the Sarasota and St. Petersburg offices, Adams and Reese now has 280 attorneys spread out over its 11 offices.
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