Nashville, Tennessee, USA downtown city skyline on the Cumberland River. – Sean Pavone/Shutterstock

Nashville is a known market of interest for law firms, and there's at least some history of notable moves there. But with homegrown firms seemingly on solid ground, can the market expect to see further shakeup in the coming years? It won't be for lack of trying.

"Nashville's been such an entrepreneurial city … and I think that permeates everything, including the legal market," said Charles Robert Bone, president and CEO of 43-lawyer Bone McAllester Norton. "Nashville's still a pretty small big town."

Bone McAllester in its current form was born of that entrepreneurial spirit two decades ago, and in the years since has grown from a handful of lawyers, according to Bone. Recently the firm brought on former Nashville Mayor David Briley, who previously practiced there and now returns to relaunch his legal practice, as well as Henry Leventis, former director of litigation for the Nashville U.S. Attorney's Office.

Bone McAllester has built its list of practice offerings and roster of clients, and in any given year, the firm's top client will account for no more than 5% of its annual gross revenue, Bone said. Firm leaders are fielding two or three calls per month from larger firms looking for potential merger partners in the city—and they're listening, but ultimately concluding that being one of the top six or so largest firms in the city is "a pretty comfortable place for us," he said.

The firm and others of similar size, and many of older vintage, must be accounted for in any effort to move into the market, lawyers say—either as willing merger partners or as local competition who have the benefit of familiarity.

The attraction is there, and many of the elements common to markets of interest apply to the Music City. Lawyers pointed to several industries driving a vibrant economy: health care, tourism and hospitality, real estate, higher education, and technology, to go along with the entertainment industry making it the nation's country music capital. Bridgestone, Nissan and Mitsubishi all have North American headquarters in or near Nashville. The city also made business headlines when it was selected by Amazon as the location for a new operations center, and when investment firm Alliance Bernstein chose to open a new office there.

The pressure for small and midsize firms to scale up at clients' behest has been well reported, but "we don't feel a whole lot of that," Bone said.

Nashville's homegrown firms might find themselves in a position to be choosy, but, pressure or no pressure, big moves have come in over the years.

There was the 2009 merger of Birmingham-based Bradley Arant Rose & White with Boult, Cummings, Conners & Berry, a Nashville firm in existence for more than a century that brought upward of 100 lawyers to the tie-up. The move formed Bradley Arant Boult Cummings, which now has 145 lawyers in Nashville.

In 2012 Mississippi-based Butler Snow burst onto the Nashville scene, bringing on 37 lawyers from Miller & Martin and three years later adding 14 laterals via its acquisition of local firm Walker, Tipps & Malone.

In 2016 local firm Harwell Howard Hyne Gabbert & Manner shuttered as most of its lawyers moved over to Nashville's largest homegrown firm, Bass, Berry & Sims.

More recently, Atlanta-based Fisher & Phillips opened a 4,000-square foot office; California-based Loeb & Loeb filled out its entertainment law practice with the addition of six laterals from Dickinson Wright; and former Tennessee insurance commissioner Julie Mix McPeak joined Greenberg Traurig, opening a Nashville office for that firm.

Amid the activity, Nashville lawyers talk about the legal community being a tight-knit one, where referrals primarily drive new business, professionals know one another, and the sense of community is strong.

"We have grown up with the city," said Kerry Price, chief strategy officer of Bass Berry, which formed in 1922 and has since grown its health-care practice to be one of national scale. The firm, with roughly 300 lawyers, competes largely with law firms located outside of the Nashville market, given the strength of its health care practice, she said.

"We know who we are. We have these very strong, established relationships. It would not make sense for us to become part of a larger firm," Price said.

Nashville's smaller firms have "all got their niche that they excel at, and Nashville is a place where relationships matter," Price said.

She said that, despite such moves as Butler Snow's and Bradley Arant's, the market is not an easy one to infiltrate.

"It's known that firms have been looking at Nashville, and that that objective has gone largely unrealized," Price said.

Nashville-based Bradley Arant managing partner Jonathan Skeeters, who came from the Boult Cummings side of the 2009 merger, said, "I think there are some barriers to entry on two fronts."

First is the strength of the homegrown firms, despite their comparatively small size in many cases. Second, Nashville is "definitely still mid-market in terms of rates"—a consideration for large firms who might fear the market won't provide high enough margins to support their structure, Skeeters said.

"There's certainly room for these firms in town still," he said of the smaller firms that make up a chunk of market's legal industry. "There's plenty of work to go around."

Those firms include: 39-lawyer Sherrard Roe Voigt & Harbison; 34-lawyer Neal & Harwell; 32-lawyer Gullett Sanford Robinson & Martin; and 30-lawyer Manier & Herod.

Those firms recruit from the same pool of talent as does Bradley Arant, and are getting good rates for litigation and other work, Skeeters said. (Leaders from those firms either didn't respond to or declined interview requests for this report).

Nevertheless, Big Law has its foothold in the city, Skeeters noted, mentioning Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough, which has a sizable office in Nashville, and Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, which years ago relocated its business functions there.

"The market is pretty dynamic," he said. "I think everybody's thinking about how to protect your flanks."

What barriers to entry exist seem not to have impeded 300-lawyer Butler Snow. The firm has leveraged Nashville's draw on out-of-state residents, recently recruiting lawyers to its Nashville office who were seeking to relocate from the West Coast, South and Mid-Atlantic, according to firm chair Christopher Maddux, who is located in the Jackson, Mississippi, office, and Robert Holland Jr., who heads the firm's Nashville office.

Nashville, where Butler Snow's office has grown to 63 attorneys, is "part of the strategic plan, certainly for the next three to five years and beyond," Maddux said, pointing to the city's quality of life as an attraction for lawyers and others looking to move there.

Holland agreed with Bone's notion of Nashville being an entrepreneurial place.

"Doors are open here," Holland said. "People are more than willing to hear ideas."

Holland said he's not aware of any impending law firm moves, but the interest in the market is nothing new.

"For 20 years, I've heard of firms interested in Nashville," he said. "That discussion has gone on for years."

They said the longtime presence of larger-than-midsize firms such as Bass Berry and 227-lawyer Nashville-based Waller Lansden Dortch & Davis can be seen as a barrier to out-of-market firms setting up a bona fide branch in the city. But big firms from the coasts frequently parachute in to work real estate deals, brought in by institutional clients, they noted.

As for the smaller firms rooted in Nashville, Maddux said they "have a unique value proposition. They're pretty happy where they are."

That description appears to fit Bone McAllester, according to Bone, calling Nashville "a pretty friendly legal market—you know everybody at all the other firms."

"All these firms work really well together—we deal better with local lawyers," Bone said, adding that "the vast majority of our referrals either come from other lawyers or from clients."

Bone McAllester is "invested in the community," he said. Its recent 19th annual Martin Luther King Jr. breakfast drew some 1,000 attendees, and it encourages lawyers' involvement in community and nonprofit boards.

The firm deals more with closely held businesses than institutional clients, he said. "They're entrepreneurs themselves." And while it is on good footing, it's still "continually" evaluating "where do we need additional bandwidth, and at what level is that bandwidth needed?"

With other firms taking that opportunistic approach, too, the market is coming due for a splash move, according to Skeeters.

A large firm "is going to make Nashville work," he said. "It could be something disruptive. … I think something like that will happen over the next three to five years."

This article first appeared in the Mid-Market Report, ALM's newsletter focused on midsized law firms.