A number of law firms have opened offices in Monmouth County this year, and many others did it years back, but is the area likely to become the new Newark, Roseland or Princeton?

Not necessarily, but it's clear enough that law firm moves to the area meet a mix of business and personal services needs—and are both client- and lawyer-driven, depending on the scenario—and that more can be expected.

"There are clients down there," said Edward Deutsch, managing partner of McElroy, Deutsch, Mulvaney & Carpenter in Morristown, which opened its now-expanded Tinton Falls office in 2014. "There are people who want to live down there. It's a fertile area."

A more recent example is Gibbons, which announced its new Red Bank office in mid-September. The Newark-based firm "really needed a base of operations in Monmouth County for the benefit of the large number of our clients who have their own operations there," managing partner Patrick Dunican Jr. said at the time.

Not long after came Greenbaum, Rowe, Smith & Davis, which on Sept. 30 announced the opening of an office in Holmdel staffed with attorneys Christopher Adams, Darren Barreiro, Steven Nudelman and Stephanie Reckord.

Greenbaum Rowe's desire for a Monmouth County shop went back some time, co-managing partner W. Raymond Felton said in a recent interview.

"Opening an office in Monmouth County is something we've talked about for a number of years," he said. "We didn't want to just move people down there and hang out a shingle, so to speak."

Enter Adams, who joined the firm in July, from Adams Buchan & Palo of Holmdel. He was familiar with Greenbaum Rowe partners dating back to his years with Walder, Sondak & Brogan, according to Felton. Greenbaum Rowe took over Adams' former firm's lease at 146 Route 34, taking on space consisting of five offices and two conference rooms, he said.

According to Felton, personal services such as estate planning and matrimonial, and business services such as development and real estate, drive the firm's need for a presence in Monmouth and Ocean counties. The new office opening was "far more of a client-driven than an attorney-driven" move, he said. "That said, who wouldn't want to shorten their own commute?"

Divorce and estate matters particularly are "more face-to-face" client engagements, he said, making the office a necessity.

"Physical presence isn't what it used to be … but you still want a connection," Felton said. "We have found historically that individual clients as opposed to business clients really prefer the geographic proximity. … They tend to prefer a physical presence."

Greenbaum Rowe opened its Roseland office 20 years ago and has been in its Metropark headquarters for 32 years. Felton said firm leaders haven't decided whether the Holmdel office will eventually relocate to a new space, but added that the firm's presence in the area is permanent.

"This is not an experiment," he said, noting that real estate costs are more reasonable compared with Metropark.

Other examples of Monmouth County openings have come steadily over the years.

Pashman Stein Walder Hayden, based in Hackensack, opened its original office there in downtown Red Bank in early 2017, and earlier this year executed a 10-year lease of about 6,500 square feet in the Bell Works in Holmdel. Managing partner Michael Stein said in a statement at the time that the firm's lawyers "have deep roots in Monmouth County and share a dedication to serving our clients with pride and determination."

Reaching further back, Archer & Greiner first opened up shop in Shrewsbury in late 2012 with a trio of laterals from Nelson Supko & Hanlon, and by 2014 moved to new space amid more lateral hires. Brian Nelson, managing partner of the firm's Monmouth office, noted back in 2012 "a dearth of large law firms with a presence in this part of the state."

But others would come, such as McElroy Deutsch in 2014, and Jackson Lewis, which in 2015 first announced plans to open up in Monmouth County with a five-lawyer labor and employment lateral group from Red Bank-based Giordano, Halleran & Ciesla.

In McElroy Deutsch's case, "there's been a lot of productive work" originating from the Tinton Falls office, Deutsch said, noting the alternative dispute resolution practice of retired Superior Court judges Lawrence Lawson and Thomas Cavanagh Jr., as well as work done on behalf of the New Jersey Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association in the sports-betting litigation by Ronald Riccio. Deutsch said ERISA, bank, insurance defense, and civil and commercial litigation work also are handled from that office.

"I think we're outgrowing it a little bit" after adding some people since 2014, Deutsch said of the office. The firm added space to its lease after the 2014 opening, currently has a year and half remaining on the lease, and after that could look to relocate the office to Red Bank or Middletown, he said.

"We'll be there—it's a permanent spot for us," Deutsch said.

Monmouth County has been a permanent spot as well for Red Bank-based Giordano Halleran, which opened decades ago and currently has some 60 lawyers.

"I think it's more lawyer-driven," managing partner Paul Colella said of the ongoing law firm migration to the area.

"I'm not looking at that and saying, that's really going to [affect] our client base," Colella said. "I just don't see it."

"More attorneys are living in this area," but "we're not a commercial mecca," Colella added. There's development, such as the Bell Works, as well as some technology clients, "but that's not going to sustain a lot of larger law firms," he said. "A lot of them are smaller satellite offices."

The Route 1 corridor remains the state's hub for tech firms, while the north still dominates for pharmaceutical clients, he noted.

Giordano Halleran has long done work for clients in the northern part of the state and beyond, but has never felt compelled to open an office in Roseland or the surrounding area. "This is not 50 years ago, where these big [deal] closings would be done all in one office," Colella said. "It doesn't make a lot of sense to me to go into Millburn."

"Law firms don't like to have a lot of satellite offices—that's an expense," he added, noting that Monmouth County real estate, while reasonable compared with points north, is becoming more costly.

Traffic, meanwhile, "has gotten worse," so it makes sense that firms based in the north would look to open an office closer to employees who live near the Jersey Shore. "Try to drive from Monmouth County up to Roseland and you do it at the wrong time, you might be doing it for two and a half hours."

Deutsch agreed that firms' interest in Monmouth County is significant but not necessarily a sign of bigger things to come.

"I don't think so," he responded, when asked whether Monmouth is becoming the state's next legal center. "I think it'll be smaller offices of larger firms in the state. … In terms of recurring commercial legal work, it's not going to rival anything in the New York-North Jersey metropolitan area."

Still, the interest remains.

Felton reiterated: "It is an appealing location."

"It wouldn't surprise me if we're not the newest firm in town in relatively short order," he said.