Sands Anderson law firm raising its profile [Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va.]
Mar. 26--When one mega-firm's name went up on the side of a downtown skyscraper, and other big legal powerhouses started building their own high-rise headquarters a few years back, the lawyers at Sands Anderson started thinking.
Their thoughts went roughly like this: As Richmond turns into even more of an exporter of legal services, with giant firms operating around the world, there might be new niches for Sands Anderson here in Virginia.
The strategy that emerged from that will, among other things, see the 168-year-old firm move a few blocks down Main Street to the top two floors of the Bank of America tower this weekend.
"It puts us more in the heart of the business community," said L. Lee Byrd, the 70-lawyer firm's chief operating officer.
Getting closer to Virginia businesses -- not so much the Fortune 500 ones, but the ones doing business in the tens of millions of dollars a year -- was also why the firm hired two mergers and acquisitions hotshots just before the financial markets imploded 18 months ago, Byrd said. It is why it kept them on through the slow times that led law firms across the country to cut their financial-law staff.
It is why last September the firm hired employment law expert Karen S. Elliott, a move she says helps her tighten her relations with her mid-size business clients, firms that employ anywhere from 30 to 500 people.
"Your employees are the backbone of your business and, when you're talking about them, it's natural to start talking about other aspects of your business," she said. Being able to refer them to a colleague, instead of a competitor, for issues that do not involve employment issues is good business and good relationship-building, she said.
Sharpening its focus on business is why Sands Anderson spun off its workers' compensation team -- nine lawyers and two dozen paralegals -- into an independent group late last year.
"It's an interesting strategy," said University of Richmond law professor Carl Tobias. Law firms don't always plan for the long haul, and many find it hard to say they don't want to be in a line of work where they already have a profitable business, he said.
The strategy's key is relationships, Byrd said.
Some are with big insurers, the companies that are at risk of paying out when Virginia businesses or doctors or lawyers are sued.
One subtlety, though, is that insurers' workers' comp staff tend to be somewhat walled off from the rest of the business, Byrd said. In a way, that's natural -- workers' comp, unlike other business insurance, is no fault. The issue of who's to blame when an employee is injured on the job doesn't come up.
"There wasn't really much of a chance for cross-selling -- that's the big thing now in legal practice," Byrd said.
At the same time, from the law firm's point of view, the workers' comp practice was different, too, said chief financial officer Benjamin W. Emerson.
It is a high-volume business, generating a lot of paperwork, and needs a lot of good paralegals -- high overhead, but low margin. When it came time to decide where to spend money, whether for marketing or staff, there were places where the payoff was potentially a lot higher, he said.
But working for an insurer on behalf of a company means getting to know the company.
Emerson said Sands Anderson wants to build more relationships with companies to handle a wide range of legal work -- including the same kinds of things he and the firm's other specialists in municipal law do for many Virginia counties, towns and cities. Bringing in experienced lawyers like Elliott is part of the strategy.
That work ranges from helping arrange financing and property deals, employment law and general legal advice.
Moving into the digs Troutman Sanders abandoned for its riverfront building should help raise the firm's profile, Emerson said.
"Going into the top floors [of the Bank of America tower] was an element in the negotiations," Byrd said. "It's a question of prominence."
The move did make for one somewhat difficult decision.
The fashion for rising law firms these days is a two-name handle. And while family of the firm's longtime star, the late Edward A. Marks Jr., were OK with dropping his name, the lawyers were a little uncertain about telling recently retired Frank B. "Bunky" Miller III they wanted to leave his name off the new office's signs -- and the firm's title going forward.
The firm's president, M. Pierce Rucker, took on the job.
"When he did," Byrd recalled, "all Bunky said was, 'What took you so long?'"
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Contact David Ress at (804) 649-6051 or [email protected].
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