Akerman offices in Miami. (Photo: J. Albert Diaz/ALM)

Akerman has added four partners to its new Atlanta office, furthering its goal of expanding the outpost that it launched last September into a full-service location. 

The Florida-based firm has recruited commercial litigator Anthony Morris from Dentons and three labor and employment practitioners: Erica Mason and Sul Kim from Constangy, Brooks, Smith & Prophete; and Peter Spanos from Barnes & Thornburg. 

It has also hired an associate for the labor and employment practice, Ana Dowell, from Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart. 

That increased Akerman's Atlanta lawyer head count to 11 since opening the office last fall with three health care partners from Polsinelli, including Sidney Welch, now Akerman's office managing partner; Jeremy Burnette; and Amy Jeon McCullough. 

In May, Akerman added corporate and M&A partners Bill Ide and Amanda Leech from Dentons, followed in June by associate Hunter Carpenter. 

With more than 700 lawyers, Akerman has been expanding rapidly beyond its Florida base. Meyers said the firm has a roughly even split at this point on lawyers inside and outside Florida. 

“What we've been doing in Chicago and Texas, we are now doing in Atlanta,” said the firm's managing partner, Scott Meyers. “We go where our clients want us to go.” 

In the last five years, Akerman has opened offices in Chicago, New Orleans and Winston-Salem, North Carolina, plus three Texas offices in Houston, Austin and San Antonio.

Meyers started the Chicago office in 2014 when he joined Akerman with a seven-lawyer team of business and intellectual property litigators from Ulmer & Berne. That office has grown to more than 50 lawyers, and Akerman has almost 60 lawyers now in its four Texas offices, which include Dallas.

Akerman's gross revenue grew about 5% last year to $404.86 million, ranking at No. 94 on the Am Law 100 list of the nation's highest-grossing firms. 

Atlanta Strategy

Atlanta, which was the firm's 24th office, is part of a push to have locations in major U.S. financial centers. 

Akerman has hired a number of established Atlanta lawyers so far. “They are very experienced practitioners with very robust books of business,” Meyers said, adding that they have local and national clients. “We are built to service both of those components.  

For instance, Morris spent almost 16 years at Dentons and predecessor firm McKenna Long & Aldridge, after almost two decades at Arnall Golden Gregory. He represents multinational insurance companies in high-dollar coverage claims, defends corporate directors and officers in securities fraud and other claims, and handles other business disputes.

(Ide, who preceded Morris to Akerman in May, spent 26 years at Dentons and McKenna, advising boards of directors, general counsel and CEOs on corporate governance and crisis management. He is also a former American Bar Association president.) 

Mason, the employment litigator from Constangy, Brooks, Smith & Prophete, serves as national and regional employment counsel for her clients, and she has successfully litigated five sexual harassment class actions before the U.S. Equal Employment Commission. She is also a past president of the Hispanic National Bar Association. 

“We're very particular in how we curate and cultivate the people we want to represent us in the market,” Meyer said. “We want people who are genuinely great to work with, who care about their clients and the firm and who give back to the community through pro bono or in other ways.”

Meyers said Akerman will continue expanding its Atlanta office into full service. “It's a question of finding the right people. There is no question of client demand,” he said.

The firm intends to deepen its existing Atlanta bench in corporate, litigation, health care and labor and employment, he said, and it's interested in adding partners in consumer financial services, bankruptcy, tax, intellectual property, government affairs and real estate. 

“In short order, we will have all these practice groups in Atlanta,” Meyers said. “It will be interesting to see where we are by our one-year anniversary.”