Fox Rothschild has acquired a local business law boutique, Kaufman Forman, as part of an immediate strategy to build out its Atlanta office.

The Philadelphia-based Am Law 200 firm's managing partner, Mark Morris, said the boutique's four lawyers are the type of lateral Fox is seeking to add to its 15-month old Atlanta office: those from smaller firms whose client base has expanded beyond the local market and can benefit from a national firm. Fox is in discussions with other lateral candidates and will likely be announcing more Atlanta hires in the next month or so, he added.

"We are pretty bullish on Atlanta," said Morris, adding that the Atlanta office is one of Fox's top growth targets of the offices it gained from its Nov. 1, 2018, acquisition of North Carolina firm Smith Moore Leatherwood. The 2018 deal expanded Fox's footprint to the Southeast.

In Fox's addition of Kaufman Forman, Rob Kaufman and his son and law partner Alex Kaufman joined the firm as equity partners while Jordan Forman joined as counsel and Matthew Treco joined as an associate. That gives Fox's Atlanta office 22 lawyers. The firm has about 900 lawyers in 27 offices.

The initial goal is to grow the Atlanta office to 25 or 30 lawyers, Morris said. In addition to the Kaufman Forman lawyers, who joined in December, Fox last spring added a labor and employment partner, Beau Howard, from business law boutique Freed Grant.

The Kaufman Forman lawyers' clients fit Fox's middle-market profile, Morris said, adding that Fox represents and serves as general counsel for numerous small to midsize companies, many privately held. It also serves the Fortune 500, he said, but generally in a more niche practice role as part of a multidisciplinary legal team.

Many Fox laterals firmwide, like the Kaufman Forman lawyers, are from smaller firms who want a national firm with more specialization and depth of practices, Morris said, so they can take advantage of business connections and relationships in other parts of the country.

Lateral candidates want to practice at a place with clients similar to their own, Morris said. "At Fox, they're not going to be overlooked or have to fit into a big institutional practice. They can continue doing their own thing," he added.

Successfully hiring good laterals "takes a personal touch," he said. "While this is a big organization, it's still a partnership, not a corporation. People are partners and they expect to be treated like partners, not just as new employees." 

Kaufman Forman

Kaufman Forman's founder, Rob Kaufman, said his firm's lawyers advise small and medium-sized companies on general business matters, mergers and acquisitions, business formation and contracts–as well as "litigation of virtually every stripe." 

Kaufman said the Kaufman Forman lawyers joined Fox because they needed broader geographic reach and more specialized practice capabilities, such as IP and health care law, for their client base, which has expanded from local companies to national and international clients with Atlanta matters, including some in China. "We found ourselves associating counsel or referring out that work," he said.

Locally, the Kaufman Forman lawyers have represented established Atlanta companies such as Goldberg's Fine Foods and Classic Collision. Foreign companies with interests in Atlanta have found them through the internet, Rob Kaufman said, and from his teaching ties at Emory, where he graduated from law school in 1975.

Kaufman teaches a trial-techniques course at Emory Law that is mandatory for 2Ls and foreign lawyers earning an LL.M. in U.S. law. His firm has hosted some of the foreign lawyers from China, Mexico and Russia interested in learning how a U.S. firm works, and some have become friends, Kaufman said.

Some of their visitors invited Kaufman and his son to China last year to meet with their law firms and clients in Beijing, Shenzhen and Hong Kong. That has led to affiliations with Chinese law firms and cross-border client referrals for Chinese clients interested in developing U.S. manufacturing operations and investing in U.S. companies.

The Chinese businesspeople they met were "very familiar with New York and California, but they had very little appreciation of the Southeast," Kaufman said. "They'd heard of Coca-Cola. That was about it."

The Atlanta lawyers explained tax incentives and other business opportunities in Georgia to the foreign businesspeople, which Kaufman said "was an eye-opener to them." Coupled with transportation facilitated by the Atlanta airport and the expansion of the Brunswick port, it put Georgia on their radar.

"There's been a flow of work back and forth, which we hope will expand over time," Kaufman said.

Kaufman said other large firms had courted the Kaufman Forman team over the years, but "we never found the right fit as far as chemistry."

The deal with Fox happened fairly quickly, he said. Fox representatives contacted them in the fall, which led to talks with senior Fox people and the December combination. "They have a similar philosophy," Kaufman said. "They are client-centric and focused on the midsize market."

Kaufman, who has been in practice for almost 45 years, started his firm in 1992. Forman joined him 20 years ago and his son, Alex Kaufman, joined 10 years ago after graduating from Emory University Law School.

At 68, Kaufman does not intend to retire anytime soon. "My exit strategy is feet-first,' he said. "I enjoy practicing law and I am not well suited for retirement. I don't really play golf. I'm an old stickball player from the Bronx."