The largest law firm in Cincinnati, Dinsmore & Shohl, has opened an office in the Philadelphia region. The office opened in Wayne, Pennsylvania, just minutes from the city. The office opened with five partners from the Pittsburgh-based firm of Burns White. The five partners came from the Burns White offices in Philadelphia and New Jersey. One of the partners is a former practice group head.
The managing partner of the new office for Dinsmore & Shohl is Richard A. O’Halloran, from the West Conshohocken, Pa. and Princeton, N.J. offices of Burns White. O’Halloran was also the chair of the business practice group with Burns White.
The practice for O’Halloran centers on commercial real estate, banking and finance, and transactions. He has a specific focus on commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) on the side of deal making and on the side of financial workout.
The other four associate to make the move from Burns White to Dinsmore & Shohl include Lindsey Hoelzle, Eric Levine, Alyson Ricker and Marshall Schreibstein. All four of the associates were members of the O’Halloran group at Burns White. The new Pennsylvania office is the second for Dinsmore & Shohl in the state. The other office has 18 lawyers working in downtown Pittsburgh and opened around 10 years ago.
George Vincent, the Dinsmore & Shohl managing partner, said that even though having a practice in Philadelphia will help the bond lawyers working in Pittsburgh, the law firm was more interested in the practice run by O’Halloran and not the geographic area for the firm.
“He does a lot of special services work for financial institutions and, while we have some lawyers who do that, he has a broader, deeper client base,” he said.
O’Halloran said that his CMBS section of the practice has grown so much over the past couple of years that he thought it was time to move to a larger law firm that has a larger breadth of practices and a wider reach in the region.
“It was a combination of the need to add markets and also the need to add services and people around us and that’s effectively what brought about the move,” O’Halloran said.
“We are honored that this distinguished group of attorneys has joined our firm. One of the firm’s strategic goals is to keep pace with continued client growth and this is certainly another step in the right direction,” Vincent said in a press release from the law firm. “These attorneys are well-known for excellence and their move to Dinsmore expands our ability to handle clients’ commercial real estate, banking and financial needs throughout the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.”
O’Halloran, per the law firm’s press release, said the following:
“We couldn’t be more excited about this move,” said O’Halloran. “We believe that Dinsmore is the perfect fit for our clients and for us personally. From every perspective – the range of service offerings, the quality of the professionals providing those services, the great history of the firm and the markets Dinsmore covers – this is a tremendous move for our clients and for each of us professionally.”