Hogan Lovells is cementing its strategy to grow in Boston with a new office in the city. The global firm, which first landed in the city just two years ago, said this week that it has moved its Boston location to a state-of-the-art space at 125 High St. A 15-year lease gives it two floors of the 30-story building, giving the firm more than 41,000 square feet to grow. Bill Lovett, managing partner at the firm's Boston office, said the new office was a key piece of the firm's growth strategy, which includes making more space to grow a life sciences practice in the city. "This move has been in the works for quite some time," he said. "The new space allows us to expand as well as accommodate attorneys and clients who come from out of town."

Bill Lovett, Boston office managing partner of Hogan Lovells.

Lovett said the firm has already implemented expansion plans in the new space: adding an IP team from McDermott Will & Emery earlier this summer that included two partners, an associate and a patent agent; transferring an appellate attorney and a regulatory attorney from the firm's D.C. office; and hiring former IBM assistant general counsel David Walsh. The new office has the capacity to house 50 to 60 attorneys, and Lovett said the firm will focus first on expanding its IP practice and related practice areas, including corporate, regulatory, litigation and antitrust. Lovett said focusing on those practice areas makes sense in Boston, a city with competitive universities and a strong financial sector that has created work for law firms looking to capitalize on education, research, life science companies, and medical or pharmaceutical startups. "I'm not sure of any other place in the country that's quite like this," he said. "[Boston] brings all of those elements together." Of course, Hogan Lovells isn't the only firm that's been betting big on Boston's legal market. In the last decade, more than a dozen major firms have planted outposts in the city, including Kirkland & Ellis, which opened up shop in 2017. From 2013 to 2018, the number of Am Law 200 firms with Boston offices increased 16%, according to ALM Intelligence's Legal Compass. This means there is stiff competition not only for clients, but for lateral talent, said Eve Howard, whose territory as one of Hogan Lovells' regional managing partners includes Boston. However, she said the firm's global platform has made it attractive for clients and potential new hires alike.

Eve Howard, Hogan Lovells

"What we believe differentiates us in the market as we compete for that key talent is a preeminence in all life-science regulatory spaces, our higher education practice and other regulatory areas," she said. Lovett added that how the firm chose to enter Boston's legal market differentiates Hogan Lovells from other out-of-towners. The firm merged with litigation boutique Collora in 2017, and Lovett said the decision to enter the city with a firm that had been respected for a quarter-century helped make the transition smoother. "This combination was a good way to come to Boston, with a group that was a known quantity in the town," he said. Howard also said the new office marks the culmination of an "intense period of modernization" at all of Hogan Lovells' U.S. offices. The space boasts universal-size offices, locally recycled materials and views of downtown and Boston Harbor that are available to all. "it's a pretty spectacular space, and it represents a state-of-the-art legal office," she said. "It's really transformed the way we we collaborate—we were always collaborative, but now we have a space where the collaboration just happens by the minute." "The move into this office is a big step for us," Lovett said. "It allows us to expand, and I think this is a big step for the Boston office and the firm as a whole."