Polsinelli has hired a pair of Holland & Knight partners this week who have a nationally known employee stock ownership plan practice, accelerating the firm's growth in the practice.

Bringing on Chicago-based Gregory Brown and Christopher Buch as shareholders will allow Polsinelli to integrate their "significant" ESOP practice with the firm's national practice, said Robert Grossman, who leads the firm's ESOP group. The laterals' clients range from manufacturing and technology firms to companies that pave roads, Brown said.

"The most exciting aspect of it is that it joins forces with our existing, national ESOP practice, which is already on the ground at Polsinelli," Grossman said.

The addition of Brown and Buch follows another ESOP lateral hire Polsinelli made earlier this year. In January, the firm added Sean Power to its ranks in Kansas City. Power had served as the general counsel for BlueScope North America, a company that makes and sells preengineered buildings, among other things.

ESOPs are business transactions in which the owners of a company sell stock to the employees who work there, Grossman explained. Brown and Buch's practice also centers around issues relating to compensation, retirement plans and investigations conducted by the U.S. Department of Labor and the Internal Revenue Service.

Brown said he's known Grossman for more than 30 years, having worked on a number of deals and presentations together, and even attending NCAA Final Four tournament games together.

"Polsinelli knows what it is and acts that way: A Midwestern-based middle-market firm. It doesn't pretend to be anything else. And for our client base … it's a perfect matchup. It's the perfect platform to run an ESOP practice from," Brown said.

Brown said his ESOP practice slowed down in March as his clients wanted to wait and see the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic. But the transactional side of his practice began picking back up again in May, he added.

"It's not full steam, but we're working and we're busy. If we don't get too many more spikes in the pandemic, it's going to be a very busy year-end for us," Brown said.

There's also an added bonus to Brown and Buch's lateral moves: their commutes into the office won't really change, as both Polsinelli and Holland & Knight are located in the same building, 150 N. Riverside Plaza.