All of the lawyers in the health care group at Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft have departed to launch a New York-based practice at Crowell & Moring.

Paul Mourning and Stephanie Marcantonio lead the nine-attorney group in New York, which includes transactional lawyers and litigators. Mourning, who started at Crowell in the last week, served as co-chair of Cadwalader's health care industry team and chair of its health care and nonprofit practices. He previously led Cadwalader's law school recruitment efforts as chair of its hiring committee.

Mourning, who had been at Cadwalader for 35 years, and Marcantonio, who was there for about 14 years, focus on transactional work for health care providers and nonprofit institutions. The team represents assisted living, hospice, nursing home and home care organizations as well as some hospitals.

While Mourning, 60, praised Cadwalader and said the group had success there, he said the firm is “very much focused on the financial services industry” and the health care team amounted to “an interesting sidebar.” “Our practice was kind of unique,” he said.

In the last couple of years, Cadwalader's head count has shrunk, and some of its offices have closed, in what the firm has called a strategy to focus on financial services and corporate clients.

In a statement to ALM, Cadwalader managing partner Patrick Quinn said Mourning and Marcantonio and their team will be missed. “We understand the reasons for their move and wish them all the best,” he said.

“Cadwalader is very successfully implementing our strategy, and a key to our success has been a sharpened focus on our natural client base of financial institutions, large corporates and funds,” Quinn said. “As we do that, partners in certain practices, like not-for-profit, may find that direction is no longer the right fit for them and decide to move on. We are committed to continuing to grow in a disciplined and strategic way, focusing on organic growth and lateral recruiting for partners that fit our firm's profile and for whom Cadwalader is the best growth platform.”

Mourning said it was the health care group's decision to leave Cadwalader. “This was a personal decision for us,” he said, and “it became clearer that there would be better platforms for what we do.”

“Being at a place where our practice was mainstream,” creates opportunities to better serve clients, Mourning said, calling health care a central focus nationally for Crowell.

Crowell represents health care insurers (commonly referred to as payers), hospitals and other providers but previously did not have a health care practice in New York. The group from Cadwalader was looking for a firm with a “nationally recognized health care practice,” Mourning said, adding that Crowell has “payer experience around the country that we will now be able to offer to our clients. We fill some gaps in what is already a great national health care practice, and it certainly helps what we can do for our clients in New York.”

Mourning said he expects clients will join him at Crowell, and he anticipates continuing to serve as national legal counsel to the Salvation Army.

According to Crowell, the team has achieved a number of successes in the last two years. The group, for instance, overcame the objection of the New York attorney general in helping secure the sale of nursing and assisted living facilities in the state, and the attorneys represented Bon Secours, a multibillion-dollar Catholic health care ministry, in negotiating the sale of Frances Schervier Home and Hospital, one of the largest nursing-home sale transactions in New York history.

The nine attorneys include four incoming partners at Crowell: Mourning and Marcantonio as well as litigators Kathy Hirata Chin and Brian McGovern, who have represented providers and provider associations in court and regulatory and compliance investigations. They will be joined by senior counsel Pamela Landman, Deirdre Long Absolonne and Jared Facher as well as counsel Michael DiFiore and Marsena Farris.

With the additions, Crowell said its health care group has grown by 20 percent to 54 attorneys.

The laterals are a big boost to Crowell in a year where the Washington-based firm has seen several departures in Manhattan and elsewhere. The firm abandoned merger talks with two midsize firms in recent years and saw the sudden exit last year of Angela Styles, now a partner at Bracewell. In 2018 alone, New York-based litigators Edwin Baum and Alan Howard left for Perkins Coie; five partners with experience in litigation, insurance and reinsurance joined Troutman Sanders in various locations; and Janet Levine and Jeff Rutherford, founding partners of Crowell's Los Angeles office, joined litigation boutique Kendall Brill & Kelly.

In an interview, Phil Inglima, chair of Crowell's management board, said the firm is pursuing other expansion opportunities in New York, including talking with smaller groups. “We always favor having expansion through more coherent and integrated groups” he said. “We're growing in all of our locations in the U.S., but New York is a special priority for us.”

The firm, well known for its government contracts work, is not limiting itself to growth in practices where it already has an established reputation, Inglima added.

As for potential future combinations, Crowell is “not pursuing a merger in New York or anywhere at this time,” he said. “We know what we do well, and we know what makes us attractive, and we continue to want to build on that.”