U.S. Capitol building. Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM.

Buffalo, New York-based Lippes Mathias Wexler Friedman is planting its flag in the nation's capital with a pair of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld attorneys with strengths in Indian Law and environmental work.

Michael Rossetti is now the co-leader of Lippes Mathias' Indian law practice, while Ian Shavitz will head the firm's environment and energy practice. They are joined by senior policy adviser Bobby Cornett, a nonlawyer who most recently served as deputy chief of staff and legislative director for former U.S. Rep. Trent Franks, R-Arizona.

Kevin Cross, managing partner of the nearly 100-attorney firm, said the firm had been looking to expand into Washington, D.C., for some time, and the move was eased by its long-standing relationship with Rossetti, who hails from western New York.

“We've been discussing this for about a year and a half now. We're careful with our opportunities and we wanted to make sure this was a good fit,” he said. “We were confident in their abilities, but there's still a lot of logistical things to take care of.”

Rossetti advises tribal clients on economic development and Indian gaming, tribal governance matters, litigation matters, and the settlement of Indian water rights. He previously served as a counselor to the secretary of the Department of the Interior in the George W. Bush administration. Before that, he was a chief deputy in the New York state attorney general's office, where he represented the state in the negotiation of the national tobacco settlement, and an assistant U.S. attorney in the Western District of New York.

According to Cross, Rossetti's connections in the federal government and his relationship with  Cornett, who, like Rossetti, was an undergraduate at the State University of New York at Buffalo, allow Lippes Mathias to add a federal lobbying component to the work it is already doing in Albany.

Shavitz spent 17 years in Akin Gump's complex or controversial projects practice. His 20-plus years of experience advising clients on land use and environmental issues associated with building large-scale infrastructure will bolster the firm's environmental practice, an area that has grown slowly in recent years, Cross emphasized.

“With our constantly growing commercial real estate practice, having Ian is a benefit to our clients,” he said.

Cornett has 11 years of congressional experience, most recently in Franks' office. The former congressman stepped down from his seat in Congress in December after the House Ethics Committee announced a sexual harassment and misconduct probe into allegations that he repeatedly asked two female staffers to bear his children.

Cross noted that the firm will seek to market the new capabilities of the Washington office to existing clients in Maryland and Virginia, and he's hopeful that that will allow further expansion of the office. The space the firm secured has room to expand to as many as 10 staffers.

“We never grow to a number, we grow based on opportunities and what we think will be a good fit,” he said. 

In addition to Washington, Lippes Mathias now has offices in Buffalo, Albany, New York City, Jacksonville, Florida, and Burlington, Ontario, outside of Toronto.

Earlier this year the firm absorbed seven-lawyer Ganz Wolkenbreit & Siegfeld in Albany. According to Cross, that move was the firm's second-largest expansion in recent years, after it first entered the Albany market in 2015 by absorbing a 10-attorney labor firm, Sheehan Greene Golderman & Jacques.

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