Mark Hendricks. Managing Partner, Lydecker Diaz.

Miami-based Lydecker Diaz is moving to larger quarters in New Jersey and looking for new office space in Boca Raton, Orlando, and Tampa as it outgrows its existing space.

The real estate expansion comes as the firm has experienced small growth in its attorney head count and is planning to add another eight-to-10 attorneys, managing partner Mark Hendricks said in an interview Monday.

The firm's head count on Monday was 79, but a hiring offer was extended last week for an attorney to start March 1, and Hendricks interviewed a candidate for a Miami opening Monday morning, he said.

“The reason for our growth and the reason we're expanding our footprint is I think our clients are finding we can provide a very good value for the work we're doing,” Hendricks said. “You need to plan ahead. You don't wait until you have too much work, and that's kind of what we're dealing with.”

Asked if he had a target number of attorneys to have in place a year from now, Hendricks demurred.

“It's got to be dictated by the clients' needs,” he said. “We're not growing for the sake of growing.”

Clients find the firm's competitive rates and full-service options appealing, Hendricks said. By practice area, growth is coming in the construction department, employment law, professional liability and business law.

In Miami, the firm has also witnessed an influx of business people from Puerto Rico since Hurricane Maria.

“We need to be well-positioned to accommodate their business needs,” said Hendricks, who has been the firm's managing partner for 10 years.

He said the firm's growth has been organic.

“It's been one lawyer at a time, and I think we're going to continue on that trajectory for the foreseeable future,” Hendricks said. “I don't know that we've been a big advocate of absorbing other law firms.”

A more customary approach to growth has been to expand in the northeast, and the firm has lawyers who are licensed in more than one state. For example, a dual-barred attorney moved north in November, Hendricks said, although he personally questioned the weather-related timing. “He was freezing his tail off,” he said.

Partner Robert Pariser opened the Jersey City, New Jersey, office two years ago in an executive suite, coming from an equity partner position at Wilson Elser. Hendricks said the firm has leased new space and will move with 10 attorneys to One Evertrust Plaza from an office two blocks away in the Exchange Place area in April or May, although he conceded his timing may be optimistic.

Lydecker Diaz has 12 offices, including eight in Florida, two in the New York City area and one in Philadelphia.

The 15-year-old firm focuses on complex commercial litigation, insurance defense, government liability and employment law.