Hiscock & Barclay and Damon Morey today announced the firms have established a 275-attorney, super-regional law firm with a wider array of special client services and expertise built on more than 250 years of combined legal experience.
The new firm, to be called Barclay Damon effective today, has substantial offices with 30 to 105 attorneys each in Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse and Albany. Barclay Damon also has growing offices in New York City, New Jersey, Boston, Toronto, New York’s Southern Tier, and Washington, D.C.
The firm will be the largest in upstate New York and the 159th largest nationally, based on the National Law Journal’s annual rankings from June 2014. It will establish 135 lawyers on the U.S.-Canadian border, adding strength to an already expanding Toronto office and the firm’s growing cross-border practice.
The new firm also creates one of the largest health-care practices in upstate New York, doubling the combined firm’s group and supporting its representation of hospitals, physician groups, skilled nursing and assisted-living facilities, developmental disability providers, behavioral health agencies, pharmacies, home-care agencies, and related clients. Barclay Damon will continue to offer well-recognized expertise in practice areas of energy; intellectual property; labor and employment; business and finance; real estate and project development; public finance; and commercial and civil litigation, among others. Providing excellent client service and top quality legal work will remain cornerstones of the enhanced firm. “This marriage establishes an organization unique in the Northeast that brings together some of the most prominent lawyers in their fields,” said John P. Langan, managing partner of Hiscock & Barclay. “The Damon Morey attorneys share our commitment to providing outstanding legal advice and solutions in a changing marketplace. They have great lawyers, a wonderful base of clients, and are well known in our region and nationally.”
“The value added to our current and prospective clients is that we now have literally hundreds of remarkable attorneys, many of whom could live and practice anywhere, but choose to live in upstate cities where they maintain more focused client relationships. The unique platform allows us to pass along cost savings to our clients while also presenting an attractive alternative home for top lateral attorneys, groups, and other firms interested in building something special,” he added.
Langan agreed to continue as managing partner of Barclay Damon.
“This combination creates exciting possibilities in one stronger firm. We will have the ability to offer a greater depth and breadth of services to our clients with broader geographic reach,” said Peter S. Marlette, managing partner of Damon Morey. “This development of a new super-regional law firm with a significant presence in Buffalo, and across upstate, is more good news and another example of the tremendous growth and continuing renaissance of the Western New York economy.”
“We see significant benefits to clients of the combined firm,” he added.
Marlette will serve as managing director of the firm’s Buffalo office with current H&B Managing Director James P. Domagalski. With 105 attorneys in Buffalo, the firm’s commitment to and strength in the Western New York region and Buffalo community continues unabated. Which Buffalo office building the new firm will use has yet to be decided.
The new firm will also have greater gender equity compared to other firms nationally. The combined firm will have 26 women partners, moving toward one in four, and 37 women associates, more than 50 percent of all associates. Both categories are statistically above the averages for law firms nationwide, according to ABA’s A Current Glance at Women in the Law, July, 2014.
One of the most significant aspects of the combination is the ability of Barclay Damon to provide a full range of sophisticated legal services for health care and human service providers. The firm’s Health Care and Human Services Practice Area will now have an enhanced ability to offer focused advice to every part of the industry, including health systems; hospitals; physicians and medical groups; surgery centers; skilled nursing and assisted living facilities; continuing care retirement communities; developmental disabilities providers; behavioral health providers; home health agencies; hospices; diagnostic imaging centers; health information organizations; medical transporters; substance abuse agencies and pharmacies, among others.
Barclay Damon creates one of the largest health law practices in upstate, with 23 attorneys whose practices are exclusively or substantially devoted to health care. Many of these attorneys have decades of experience working with health-care and human-service providers, and several are former employees of the New York State Department of Health, New York’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit and other governmental agencies.
The strength of the group’s statewide platform will provide the firm’s clients with an unparalleled breadth and depth of transactional, regulatory and litigation resources.
Damon Morey, currently ranked No. 3 on the list of Buffalo law firms, and Hiscock & Barclay, ranked sixth here, will in combination come close to No. 2 in Buffalo. Hiscock & Barclay has 80 attorneys in Syracuse and 40-plus attorneys in Albany. Barclay Damon will remain second-largest in both markets. The combined firm has about 500 attorneys and support staff.
Hiscock & Barclay has been on a two-decade trajectory of growth, from 50 attorneys in 1995 to the 210 attorneys in practice prior to today’s announcement. Execution of a strategic plan to expand its services, diversify its client base, and extend its geographic reach, helped the firm develop new expertise in the areas of energy, intellectual property, health care, labor and employment, tax reduction and public finance, among others. Hiscock & Barclay was founded in 1855 in Syracuse.
During this same period, Damon Morey embarked on its own strategic plan to attract top talent and expand services in health care, trusts and estates, corporate law, complex tort and product liability litigation, and labor and employment, among others. This alliance will help both firms accomplish their commonly shared goals. Damon Morey was founded in 1917 in Buffalo.
