According to industry reports, the Minneapolis law firm of Mansfield, Tanick & Cohen may be headed towards closure as two of the three named partners may be joining an Edna competitor by this month. And of course, if they leave, they would be taking their groups of friends and followers with them.
Marshall Tanick, who is the CEO and co-founder, and Earl Cohen, a managing shareholder, and six other attorneys are expected to leave the firm within the month and join Hellmuth & Johnson, a corporate and commercial law firm, on October 1.
Cohen told the media in an interview on Friday that the board of Mansfield, Tanick & Cohen is expected to close the firm without much ado. While the firm had been aggressively seeking a full-scale merger, it failed to find a taker. Meanwhile, its strength continued to ebb away with a string of lateral hires to other firms.
Cohen said candidly at the interview, “We lost mass, to be blunt. For the space we had, we really had to have 14 to 15 solid rainmaking producers. Once we got below that level, the economics just were not going to work long-term.”
Partners who have already left Mansfield, Tanick & Cohen this year include state unemployment judge Phillip Trobaugh, Halleland Habicht shareholder Daniel Schleck, Lomen, Abdo, Cole, King & Stageberrg attorneys Jeffrey O’Brien and Greg Perleberg, Rick Petry who formed his own law firm, and others.
The law firm was formed in 1989 when Seymour Mansfield and Tanick merged their law practices. It has been learned that beside Tanick and Cohen, other partners who would be leaving the firm include Denise Tataryn, Teresa Ayling and Steven Rose, and firm counsel Jerome Rice, along with a number of associates. Possibly, another partner Gregory Miller would be moving to Siegel Brill.