Schiff Hardin Acquires Construction, Estates Firm

Schiff Hardin is acquiring Mazur Carp & Rubin, an 11-attorney construction law and trusts and estates firm. The combined New York office will operate under the Schiff Hardin name. Chicago-founded Schiff Hardin has about 400 attorneys firmwide. With the combination, the firm will have 53 lawyers in New York as all of Mazur Carp's lawyers are making the move—eight partners, two associates and one counsel. Schiff Hardin's New York office, its second largest, formed in 1991. Sayward Mazur and Gerald Carp established their firm in 1980.

Mazur, who led his firm's construction practice, said his firm had been courted by others but it has stayed independent until now because "there's nothing like being your own boss." He added, "We sort of reached as far as we can reach… Frankly the resources we get [at Schiff Hardin], the technology we have access to, we never would have put in place." Mazur added that the firm has large clients in New York, such as the state Dormitory Authority, "but we felt we were getting short shrift from major private institutional kinds of clients and now we can serve them." Schiff Hardin's billing rates, he said, are compatible to his firm's, but he declined to elaborate.