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In-house dispute at the Portland law firm Ball Janik has lead to several prominent attorneys leaving the firm en masse. All of those who have left are real estate lawyers and the group announced on Monday that they are launching a new law firm by the name of Radler White Parks & Alexander. Radler, Parks and White were partners at Ball Janik, who were joined by their colleague Christe White. Ball Janik officials declined to comment on the matter.
For long, Ball Janik has been known as one of the best firms in the Northwest for real estate developers. However, over the last decade, the law firm also hired a group of litigators specializing in construction defect claims. This formed two lobbies within the firm – one of the real estate specialists, and the other of the construction defect specialists, and differences kept piling up between the two. With the recession setting in, real estate lawyers were no more in such a great demand as before while litigation claims over construction defects emerged as a prime market. Naturally, the money and revenue equation within the law firm changed substantially from its original pattern.
Dina Alexander, one of the partners who left to float the new firm told the media, “Organizations evolve and I think this organization is evolving … It’s to the point that the litigation practice is becoming the biggest practice in terms of number of people and revenue. For some of us, it made us thing it was time to get back to the basics of real estate and land-use. … In our opinion, there are some inherent inconsistencies and certainly some conflicts when you have a group that represents developers and another group that represents homeowners.”
The new law firm would see Alexander and White work together once more. Their team is considered to be one of the most formidable real estate development lawyers in Portland area practice. Earlier, White had left Ball Janik to join another firm, and later set up a solo practice.
