Just months after immigration firm Berry Appleman & Leiden announced an alliance with the British arm of Deloitte, the law firm has launched an office in New York, taking a 60-person immigration team from Epstein Becker & Green.

The team, led by Robert Groban Jr., includes 10 attorneys, mostly associates, and about 50 non-attorney paralegals and other staff.

Berry Appleman managing partner Jeremy Fudge, based in Dallas, said his firm had been looking to launch in New York for several years. He said the Deloitte UK alliance, announced in June, was another nudge to open in Manhattan, noting the strong financial services client base in the city.

“They've [Deloitte UK] got a lot of financial services clients in New York who are looking for U.S. immigration services,” he said. “Yes, absolutely, being here allows us to service them better and more locally.”

Berry Appleman, an immigration firm founded about 38 years ago in San Francisco, now has about 127 attorneys, many of them in California and Texas.

Under the arrangement announced in June, Deloitte UK formed an alliance with the immigration firm's U.S. operations, while Deloitte UK acquired the law firm's non-U.S. business, which extends across eight different countries. Firm employees outside the U.S. became employees of Deloitte, while the law firm personnel inside the U.S. stayed part of Berry Appleman.

(ALM has previously reported the firms had to ensure the alliance did not run afoul of bar rules prohibiting Deloitte's American entity from providing legal services. Deloitte U.S. is party neither to the alliance nor the acquisition of the overseas offices.)

While the launch of the New York office could be another sign of the encroaching competition by the Big Four with traditional law firms in the U.S., Fudge said Berry Appleman will provide the legal services, not Deloitte. Still, the firm touts its close partnership with Deloitte UK. “We have embraced the notion that Deloitte can bring services and skills and bring new practices and technology to the table that the traditional law firm can't,” Fudge said.

'Busting at the Seams'

While Epstein Becker still has a handful of immigration attorneys in New Jersey and San Francisco, Groban's group represented the bulk of the firm's immigration practice.

In a statement to ALM, Epstein Becker said it intended to “transition” its New York immigration practice and it wishes the group well. Now, San Francisco–based Jang Hyuk Im will lead its immigration practice.

“We are pleased to have found a home for our New York City-based immigration practice, a transition on which we had planned and have worked with BAL during most of 2018,” said David Garland, a member of Epstein's board of directors. He added that his firm “will continue to deliver innovative and integrated workforce management solutions to our clients, including immigration, simply from a group more appropriately sized and located for us.”

Robert Groban. Courtesy photo.

But Groban, in an interview, said that it “was more of a mutual decision” that led to the group's departure. “They couldn't handle us the way we were growing. It was a recognition by them that either we change, they change or we left,” he said.

Groban, who formally led Epstein's immigration practice, had overseen the dramatic growth of its immigration department, representing banks, hedge funds, pharmaceutical companies, e-commerce entities, manufacturing businesses and others. Last year alone, the firm handled about 1,500 H-1B visa petitions, he said, referring to visas that allow U.S. companies to employ foreign workers.

“Given the growth, and the rate of growth that we had experienced, we needed more support than they were willing to provide,” he said, referring to support in technology, organization resources and space, among other aspects.

“The technology required to support that, the firm commitment to manage that … we had simply outgrown [Epstein Becker],” he said, a firm mostly focused on employment law and health care. “We were busting at the seams. We needed to find a new landing-place.”

Groban praised Berry Appleman for its culture, resources and technology, referring to its own case management software. “If the technology is better, we can provide the same or better product for less cost, so it makes us more competitive,” Groban said.

Fudge, the managing partner, said while Berry Appleman has offices in several regions now, it doesn't have a presence in Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, Seattle and Southern California. He anticipates other new offices within the next two years. “We want to cover the map. We want to be local to clients and pick up new industries that way,” he said.

And while the Trump administration has tamped down on visas, Fudge said the firm's business has actually increased in the current political environment.

“There's an increased demand for compliance-related matters for our clients. Clients are on edge. That has created a heightened level of anxiety and uncertainty for businesses to operate,” he said, adding now outright denials from the government or requests for more information are “very common.”

“We have to work harder and companies need us to work harder and because compliance is heightened, the concern for companies is heightened,” Fudge said.

In moving to Manhattan, Berry Appleman is confronting head-on the largest immigration firm headquartered in New York, Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen & Loewy. “We've been competing for Fragomen for decades and we are often looking to win the same work,” Fudge said.