Summary: Twenty-two partners are leaving Schiff Hardin for a new boutique firm.
Chicago-based law firm Schiff Hardin has to say goodbye to twenty-two partners, Bloomberg BNA reports. According to LawCrossing, Schiff Hardin is a general practice firm that employs 400 attorneys and has multiple offices throughout the United States.
The twenty-two partners left to form a boutique firm with offices in Chicago, San Francisco, and New York. The new firm will be called Riley Safer Holmes & Cancila.
The name partners include Robert Riley, Ron Safer, Patricia Brown Holms, and Joseph Cancila.
Riley is a former chairman of Schiff Hardin. Safer previously worked at the U.S. Attorney’s office in Chicago and he led Schiff Hardin’s compliance and investigations practice. Brown Holmes is a retired associate judge and president of the Chicago Bar Association. Cancila formerly led Schiff Hardin’s national class action practice.
Bloomberg BNA reports that the partners leaving were the heads of Schiff Hardin’s white-collar and governments investigations practice. Their departure could lead to a big hit to Schiff Hardin, but Schiff Hardin’s representative downplayed the resignations.
“The vast majority of our business and practices are not affected by these departures as a large concentration of those departing focus on asbestos litigation. As a result, their resignations do not alter our strategy for the future,” managing partner Marci Eisenstein said in a statement.
Safer, who led the exit, told Bloomberg that the partners leaving specialize in broader areas than asbestos. He also shared that the reason the partners left was to “provide the market with something different.” He could not go into further details at this time, but the news was spread internally last week.
Amongst the 22 exiting Schiff Hardin attorneys, 14 were equity partners.
Steve Hankins, Matt Fischer, Tom Quinn, Heidi Dalenberg, and Matt Crowl are other attorneys leaving Schiff Hardin for the new firm.
An anonymous source told Bloomberg that potential clients for the new firm include United Airlines, Pepsi Co., Unilever, Edison Learning and Newell Rubbermaid.
Source: Bloomberg BNA